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The  Fiftieth  Anniversary 

of 

The  Opening  of  Vassar  College 

OSfober  lo  to  13,  1915 

I? 

r^  Record 


Vassar  College 

^oughkeepsie  3^w  York 
1916 


Copyright^  1916,  63/  Vassar  College 


Z).  ^.  Updike  -  The  Merrymount  Press  -  Boston 


""And  all  thisfeste  tyme  lastyng  the  fairest  wethir 
that  evir  sy  Cristen  man  *' 


336135 


Foreword 

THE  cycle  of  fifty  years  rounded  out  by 
the  academic  history  of  Vassar  College 
seemed  to  close  not  so  much  in  a  spirit  of  pride 
as  with  a  tacit  acceptance  of  progress  accom- 
plished and  the  serene  will  to  achieve  a  larger 
future.  Accordingly,  the  celebration  of  the  an- 
niversary of  the  opening  of  the  college  had  a 
constructive  as  well  as  a  commemorative  pur- 
pose. While  affectionate  remembrance  of  the 
Founder  and  of  those  who  by  their  services 
helped  to  establish  the  early  college  was  made 
abundantly  evident,  the  backward  glance  was 
taken  not  in  tribute  alone,  but  also  for  the 
sake  of  estimate  and  comparison  which  should 
make  the  future  structure  secure.  Essential 
facts  of  the  past  were  turned  to  critical  account; 
both  change  and  evolution  were  suggested.  At 
the  same  time  a  strong  emphasis  was  placed 
upon  the  problems  of  the  modern  college. 
The  general  functions  of  the  college,  the  true 
offices  of  learning,  the  relation  of  the  college 


X  FOREWORD 

with  which  the  college  of  to-day,  now  grown 
to  a  full  sense  of  power,  united  for  creative 
effort,  producing  a  celebration  which  was  not 
only  memorable  in  idea  and  purpose,  but 
touched  with  beauty. 

Though  the  celebration  was  in  truth  a  com- 
munity production,  special  acknowledgments 
are  none  the  less  due.  All  labors  were  light- 
ened by  the  liberal  and  discerning  policy 
of  the  trustees  as  expressed  through  their 
committee,  which  gave  free  play  to  initiative 
and  complete  support  to  originality  wherever 
manifested.  The  warmest  appreciation  must 
be  accorded  the  general  faculty  committee 
for  wise  and  thorough  planning,  and  to  num- 
berless individuals  for  the  unsparing  expendi- 
ture of  forethought,  time,  and  energy.  To  the 
chairman  of  the  faculty  committee,  who  for 
nearly  two  years  guided  with  unfaltering  en- 
thusiasm and  inspiring  skill  the  many-sided 
activities  of  preparation,  hearty  recognition 
has  been  given  by  common  consent.  These 
pages  may  also  express  the  gratitude  of  the 


FOREWORD  3d 

college  for  certain  acts  of  generosity  on  the 
part  of  anonymous  donors.  Through  the  gift 
of  a  friend  and  as  a  significant  part  of  the  cele- 
bration, the  college  is  publishing  a  group  of 
scholarly  books  written  by  alumnae  of  Vas- 
sar,  known  as  the  Semi-Centennial  Series, 
which  is  to  form  a  memorial  of  scholarship.  A 
friend  who  perceived  the  possibilities  of  the 
site  chosen  for  the  production  of  the  pageant 
gave  to  the  college  an  open-air  theatre  of 
unique  beauty  and  charm,  which  permitted  a 
large  hospitality  and  is  now  a  lasting  posses- 
sion. The  pleasure  of  music,  in  the  Russian 
Symphony  concerts  and  the  organ  recital, 
was  made  possible  through  the  generosity  of 
an  alumna.  Indeed, every  good  gift  was  given. 
The  co-operation  of  the  college  and  its  friends 
seemed  at  length  to  become  a  kind  of  friendly 
rivalry  for  the  achievement  of  a  common  de- 
sign. 

Like  all  else  in  the  plan  for  the  celebration, 
this  book, which  seeks  to  record  the  events  of 
the  fiftieth  anniversary,  has  been  completed 


xii  FOREWORD 

with  the  sanction  and  under  the  general  di- 
rection of  Miss  Amy  L.  Reed,  Chairman  of 
the  Faculty  Committee,  and  Mr.  George  E. 
Dimock, Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Trus- 
tees. 

Constance  Mayfield  Rourke 

Chronicler 


Contents 

PAGE 

The  Anniversary  Sermon 

By  William  Herbert  Perry  Faunce,  President  of 
Brown  University  3 

The  Anniversary  Addresses 

Vassar's  Contribution  to  Educational  Theory  and 
Practice,  by  James  Monroe  Taylor,  President 
Emeritus  of  Vassar  College  19 

Spacious  Days  at  Vassar,  by  Mary  Augusta  Jordan, 
Class  of '76,  Professor  of  English  in  Smith  College       47 

Geographical  Research  as  a  Field  for  Women,  by 
Ellen  Churchill  Semple,  Class  of  '82,  of  Louisville, 
Kentucky  70 

The  Highest  Education  for  Women,  by  Julia  Clif- 
ford Lathrop,  Class  of  '80,  Chief  of  the  Children's 
Bureau,  United  States  Department  of  Labor  81 

New  Aspects  of  Old  Social  Responsibilities,  by  Lil- 
lian D.  Wald,  of  the  Henry  Sti'eet  Settlement,  New 
York  City  96 

Women  and  Democracy,  by  Emily  James  Putnam, 
Associate  in  History  in  Barnard  College  109 

The  Inaugural  Ceremonies 

Invocation,  by  Henry  Mitchell  MacCracken,  Chan- 
cellor Emeritus  of  New  York  University  129 


xiv  CONTENTS 

The  Inaugural  Ceremonies  {continued) 

The  Inaugural  Addresses: 

The  Mystery  of  the  Mind's  Desire,  by  John  H. 
Finley,  President  of  the  University  of  the  State  of 
New  York  and  Commissioner  of  Education  131 

The  Scholar  and  the  Pedant,  by  George  Lyman 
Kittredge,  Professor  of  English  in  Harvard  Univer- 
sity 141 

The  Installation  of  President  MacCracken,  by  Wil- 
liam Caldwell  Plunkett  Rhoades,  Chairman  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  Vassar  College  156 

In  the  Cause  of  Learning,  by  Henry  Noble  Mac- 
Cracken, President  of  Vassar  College  157 

Salutations: 

Greeting:  On  Behalf  of  the  Colleges  for  Women,  by 
Mary  Emma  WooUey,  President  of  Mount  Hol- 
yoke  College  174 

Greeting :  On  Behalf  of  the  Colleges  for  Women 
affiliated  with  Universities,  by  Virginia  Crocheron 
Gildersleeve,  Dean  of  Barnard  College  178 

Greeting :  On  Behalf  of  the  Universities,  by  Arthur 
Twining  Hadley,  President  of  Yale  University  181 

The  Intercollegiate  Student  Conference  187 

The  Pageant  of  Athena  223 


CONTENTS  XV 

Other  Features  of  the  Celebration 

Vassar  Milestones:  A  Play  249 
The  Historical  Exhibition  of  Physical  Training         258 

The  Alumnae  Luncheon  261 

The  Alumnae  Meeting  262 

Music  265 

Receptions  267 

The  Anniversary  Dinners  268 

Exhibits  289 

The  Semi- Centennial  Series  300 

The  General  Programme  of  the  Celebration       303 

Delegates  315 

Committees  331 


The  Anniversary  Sermon 


The  Anniversary  Sermon 

BY  WILLIAM  HERBERT  PERRY  FAUNCE 

President  of  Brown  University 

I  long  to  see  you^  that  I  may  impart  unto  you  some 
spiritual  gift.  Romans  i:  2. 

THERE  is  a  striking  and  instructive  contrast 
between  the  attitude  of  the  Apostle  Paul  when 
planning  his  journey  to  the  capital  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  attitude  of  the  poet  Goethe  when 
about  to  visit  the  same  city.  In  Goethe's  day  the 
best  of  Rome  was  in  ruins,  but  from  earHest  child- 
hood he  had  dreamed,  by  day  and  by  night,  of  see- 
ing it.  As  at  last  he  started  on  his  journey  south- 
ward, his  enthusiasm  was  boundless.  As  he  left  the 
dark  forests  and  chilly  skies  of  Germany  for  the 
sunlit  plains  of  Italy,  he  filled  letters  and  journals 
with  glowing  anticipation.  On  arrival  he  wrote : 
Now  I  am  here  at  my  ease,  and,  as  it  would  seem, 
shall  be  tranquilized  for  my  whole  life.  All  dreams 
of  my  youth  I  now  behold  realized  before  me.  .  .  .1 
rejoice  when  I  think  of  the  blessed  effects  of  all  this 
on  the  whole  future  of  my  being."  That  was  a  le- 
gitimate kind  of  enjoyment.  Many  of  us  have  felt  it. 
But  the  utterance  is  remarkable  for  what  it  neglects 
to  say.  Self-culture  was  Goethe's  all-absorbing  aim, 
and  that  aim  was  completely,  tragically  realized. 


4         VASSAR  COIJ.EGE  CELEBRATION 

Seventeen  centuries  earlier  another  traveler  was 
about  to  visit  Rome,  then  not  a  mass  of  crumbling 
ruins,  but  still  standing,  all  its  temples  crowded,  all 
its  streets  bright  with  processions,  all  its  palaces 
stored  with  the  spoils  of  the  world.  And  no  temple 
or  statue  or  palace  apparently  could  impress  him 
in  the  least.  His  moral  passion  left  no  place  for  aes- 
thetic delight.  He  had  gotten  far  beyond  self-devel- 
opment as  the  goal  of  life.  Why  was  he  going  to 
Rome?  ' '  I  long  to  see  you, ' '  he  writes,  * '  that  I  may 
impart  unto  you  some  spiritual  gift." 

The  American  college,  like  the  individual  trav- 
eler, enters  a  world  far  older  than  itself,  and  faces 
a  complex  mass  of  contending  forces,  institutions 
dying  or  developing,  ideas  regnant  or  decadent.  Does 
it  stand  here  as  mere  absorber  and  consumer,  or  as 
producer  and  creator?  Does  it  ask  an  alms,  or  offer 
a  gift?  Does  it  seek  its  own  development  in  num- 
bers, architecture,  endowment,  visible ,  power,  or 
does  it  hold  all  it  possesses  in  trust  for  the  struggling 
world  ?  Can  it  transmute  endowments  and  gates  and 
towers  into  spiritual  gifts?  Is  it  simply  seeking 
to  extract  and  assimilate,  or  is  it  an  inspiring  and 
creative  power,  the  giver  of  things  indispensable 
to  national  life? 

The  early  schools  and  colleges  of  America  cer- 
tainly aimed  at  an  impartation  of  spiritual  life,  even 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  SERMON  5 

if  sometimes  in  crude  and  mechanical  ways.  The 
''New  England  Primer"  taught  New  England 
children  to  read  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and 
at  the  same  time  taught  them  the  Decalogue  and 
the  Message  of  Israel.  The  schools  of  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut  were  simply  an  arm  of  the  church. 
On  the  west  gate  of  Harvard  University  is  the  quaint 
inscription  which  records  the  motive  of  the  founders 
of  our  oldest  college :  "Dreading  to  leave  an  illiter- 
ate ministry  to  the  churches  when  our  present  min- 
isters shall  be  in  the  dust."  On  the  records  of  the 
oldest  church  in  Rhode  Island,  in  whose  colonial 
meeting-house  Brown  University  meets  on  Com- 
mencement Day,  is  this  entry :  ''Voted,  to  build  a 
meeting-house  for  the  pubhc  worship  of  Almighty 
God  and  also  to  hold  Commencements  in."  That 
junction  of  worship  and  study,  that  combination  of 
intellectual  enthusiasm  and  religious  devotion,  that 
view  of  the  college  as  the  bearer  of  spiritual  guid- 
ance and  inspiration,  marked  all  the  founders  of  the 
early  New  England  colleges.  Whatever  may  have 
been  true  of  the  universities  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Virginia,  the  colleges  of  New  England  deliberately 
sought  to  impart  a  spiritual  gift. 

They  aimed  not  primarily  at  the  discovery  of 
truth, — what  We  now  call  research.  They  aimed 
not  at  the  delights  of  an  abstract  and  detached 


6         VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

culture.  Imbued  as  they  were  with  the  spirit  of  Ox- 
ford, they  never  dreamed  of  creating  in  the  Ameri- 
can wilderness  a  * '  home  for  lost  causes  and  impos- 
sible ideals."  The  Ciceronian  praise  of  studies  that 
'*  adorn  prosperity  and  furnish  refuge  in  adversity ' ' 
was  dear  to  the  Italian  Renaissance,  but  not  to  the 
founders  of  America.  Our  founders  aimed  at  the 
equipment  of  men  as  leaders  of  the  national  mind 
and  conscience,  as  the  givers  of  something  invisible, 
imponderable,  but  invaluable  to  their  generation. 
What  was  the  gift  of  Mark  Hopkins  and  Eliphalet 
Nott  and  Alice  Freeman  Palmer?  What  was  it  that 
proceeded  from  the  chairs  occupied  by  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell  and  Maria  Mitchell  and  Louis  Agassiz 
and  Charles  E.  Garman  ?  Something  had  happened 
in  the  souls  of  those  men  and  women  before  they 
began  to  teach,  and  their  students  felt  the  vibration 
of  the  volcanic  eruptions  in  the  teachers'  spirit.  Why 
is  it  that  out  of  obscure  colleges,  out  of  dilapidated 
buildings,  and  from  professors  in  frayed  garments 
have  come  the  motive  powers  that  have  created 
American  life?  Because  the  college  has  been  not  a 
series  of  buildings,  but  a  state  of  mind;  not  an  in- 
genious curriculum,  but  an  attitude  toward  life;  not 
a  conservatory  for  the  elect  few,  but  the  impartation 
of  spiritual  ideals  to  the  entire  nation. 

The  chief  duty  and  opportunity  of  the  colleges 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  SERMON  r 

for  women  to-day  lies  in  fidelity  to  this  early  concep- 
tion. Their  chief  business  is  to  produce  non-economic 
values  and  to  emphasize  intangible  goods.  The 
men's  colleges  have  for  various  reasons,  some  good, 
some  bad,  departed  from  their  original  allegiance. 
The  enthusiasm  for  applied  science  has  led  some 
of  them  to  neglect  all  which  cannot  be  subjected  to 
laboratory  experiment,  and  to  forget  that 

"Zi/^V  bases  rest 
Beyond  the  probe  of  chemic  test.'*'* 

Some  institutions  no  longer  ' '  see  life  steadily  and 
see  it  whole,"  but  see  it  in  microscopic  fragments. 
Some  of  our  famous  scholars  have  divorced  know- 
ledge from  effort,  retaining  their  intellectual  curios- 
ity, but  losing  all  power  to  construct. 

In  other  institutions  for  men  the  outlook  has  been 
narrowed  by  a  narrow  interpretation  of  the  idea  of 
vocation.  Such  schools  have  sent  out  lawyers  who 
are  not  primarily  interested  injustice,  and  ministers 
who  still  conceive  religion  as  retreat  from  the  world. 
They  have  produced  engineers  who  understand  the 
strength  of  materials,  but  not  the  characteristics 
of  human  nature.  They  have  given  us  employers 
who  have  little  knowledge  of  the  problems  of  labor, 
no  developed  social  consciousness,  nodesire  to  under- 
stand how  the  other  half  lives.  They  have  given  us 


8         VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

men  of  crude  efficiency  without  spiritual  vision,  alive 
to  the  demands  of  their  own  business  but  not  to  the 
needs  of  America,  men  who  began  as  office  boys  and 
ended  by  owning  a  large  part  of  the  earth  and  the 
fullness  thereof.  We  have  thus  sometimes  made  the 
college  an  adjunct  of  swift  commercial  success,  and 
have  forgotten  ' '  the  last  of  life  for  which  the  first 
was  made." 

Our  women's  colleges  have  never  yet  followed 
after  these  false  gods.  But  with  the  entrance  of 
women  into  fields  of  economic  and  industrial  effort 
the  same  problems  will  come,  the  same  temptation 
arise ;  and  it  is  right  that  we  should  on  this  quiet 
Sunday  afternoon  think  of  educated  women  as  the 
bearers  of  a  spiritual  gift. 

I  know  we  are  often  afraid  of  the  word  '  *  spirit- 
ual." It  seems  to  us  perilously  near  the  pietistic  or 
the  sanctimonious.  The  word  scarcely  has  academic 
standing — the  more 's  the  pity.  But  it  is  too  fine  and 
deep  a  word  to  lose  out  of  academic  halls.  What  do 
we  mean  by  spiritual?  Surely  we  mean  the  power 
to  look  behind  the  material  semblance  of  an  object, 
an  event,  a  tendency,  and  perceive  the  spirit  which 
informs  it  and  gives  it  significance.  We  mean  the 
power  to  look  behind  the  red,  white,  and  blue  bunt- 
ing and  see  the  flag ;  to  look  behind  the  two  sticks 
set  at  right  angles  and  see  the  cross  which  is  the 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  SERMON  9 

hope  of  the  world ;  the  power  to  look  behind  bayonets 
and  howitzers  and  see  the  eternal  battle  of  right  and 
wrong ;  the  power  to  see  life  not  as  a  confused  ant- 
hill, but  as  an  evolving  City  of  God. 

Such  a  spiritual  gift  we  need  to-day  in  the  realm 
of  scholarship.  We  are  sometimes  troubled  because 
the  New  Testament  seems  so  nearly  obUvious  to  the 
educational  process  and  speaks  of  knowledge  only 
as  that  which  '^puffeth  up."  Perhaps  if  the  New 
Testament  writers  could  read  some  university  theses 
presented  to-day  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philo- 
sophy, they  would  prefer  to  speak  of  knowledge  as 
that  which  ''^  drieth  up."  When  recently  there  was 
pubhshed  a  concordance  to  the  works  of  Virgil,  the 
fact  was  made  known  that  in  all  the  extant  works 
of  that  poet  the  word  et  occurs  over  five  thousand 
times.  When  this  momentous  fact  was  announced, 
a  classical  scholar  wrote  to  the  author  of  the  con- 
cordance, congratulating  him  on  his  achievement, 
but  complaining  of  one  omission :  he  should  have 
stated  how  many  times  in  the  works  of  Virgil  et 
occurs  before  a  consonant  and  how  many  times 
before  a  vowel. 

The  Scribes  and  Pharisees  live  again  in  this  pe- 
dantic and  purposeless  learning ;  again  they  tithe 
their  mint,  anise,  and  cummin  ;  and  it  will  avail  us 
little  to  escape  the  tyranny  of  ecclesiastics  if  we  are 


10       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

to  fall  under  the  tyranny  of  the  specialists.  When 
womanhood  with  its  swift  intuition,  its  wealth  of 
sympathy,  its  strong  personal  conviction,  its  asser- 
tion of  the  soul,  enters  the  realm  of  scholarship,  it 
ought  to  sweep  before  it  all  learned  pettifogging, 
as  the  morning  sun  scatters  the  clinging  mists.  It 
should  irradiate  knowledge  with  the  light  of  wis- 
dom, and  should  vitalize  it  with  a  great  human 
purpose.  It  should  prevent  the  older  studies  from 
becoming  inhumanities,  and  correlate  the  newer 
studies  with  the  entire  Kingdom  of  the  Spirit.  The 
ancient  Greek  could  not  conceive  the  possibility  of  a 
separation  of  knowledge  and  virtue.  To  him  beauty 
and  truth  and  goodness  were  identical,  and  to  see  the 
truth  was  inevitably  to  love  it  and  incarnate  it.  To 
us  the  field  of  knowledge  has  become  so  great  that 
we  have  divided  it  into  imaginary  departments,  or 
have  separated  it  altogether  from  the  personal  life. 
We  have  found  the  truth  in  libraries  and  museums, 
rather  than  as  the  Greeks  did  in  growth  of  person- 
ality, or  as  the  Hebrews  did  through  the  Word  be- 
coming flesh.  It  may  be  the  mission  of  our  women's 
colleges  to  call  us  back  to  the  higher  synthesis,  to 
that  union  of  truth  and  personality  which  is  eternal 
life. 

Our  age  also  needs  a  spiritual  gift  in  the  realm 
of  the  home.  We  are  all  familiar  with  what  is  often 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  SERMON  11 

called  the  disintegration  of  the  modern  home.  A 
century  ago  all  the  members  of  an  American  family 
rose  at  the  sound  of  the  same  bell  in  the  morning, 
sat  at  the  same  table  three  times  a  day,  and  gathered 
round  the  same  evening  lamp.  There  was  a  visible 
unity  in  the  home,  which  persisted  even  when  spir- 
itual unity  was  wanting.  Now  we  find  a  discontent 
with  the  old  rigid  order,  an  expansion  of  the  home 
until  it  includes  the  neighborhood,  the  school-house, 
the  factory,  or  the  whole  city.  Various  forms  of  work 
have  left  the  home,  and  the  women  who  once  did 
the  work  have  followed  after.  A  vast  amount  of  fem- 
inine energy  has  been  released  from  the  old  burdens 
and  tasks  and  is  now  demanding  some  worthy  hu- 
man object.  Women  with  time  and  strength  to  spare 
are  seeking  to  function  in  the  expanded  home  and 
to  make  the  modern  city  home-like  to  all  its  sons  and 
daughters.  This  released  energy  is  expressing  itself 
sometimes  in  grotesque  or  blundering  ways,  which 
make  us  tremble  for  the  future  of  the  home.  But  as 
the  instinct  to  mate  and  nest  is  ineradicable  in  the 
birds,  it  is  far  more  persistent  and  inevitable  in  hu- 
manity. Homes  will  be,  while  stars  shine  and  earth 
revolves. 

But  can  the  college  give  to  the  home  a  deeper 
spiritual  significance?  At  least  it  can  show  us  all 
that  a  home  founded  on  selfishness  and  love  of  plea- 


12       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

sure  can  never  endure,  while  a  home  founded  on  the 
sincere  desire  to  ennoble  another  life  and  enlarge  its 
possibilities,  a  home  whose  roots  are  deep  in  altru- 
ism and  idealism,  has  the  permanence  of  the  tree 
planted  by  the  rivers  of  water.  Affection  is  both  a 
craving  and  a  giving  impulse.  But  where  there  is 
the  craving  only, — the  craving  for  sensation,  for 
praise,  for  social  success,  —  the  home  is  founded  on 
the  drifting  sand.  Where  there  is  the  sincere  desire 
to  impart  some  spiritual  gift,  the  home  becomes  as 
enduring  as  the  truth  it  expresses  and  the  love  it 
enshrines.  Then  it  becomes  not  a  place  for  eating 
and  drinking  and  storing  clothes  and  shoes,  but  a 
guest-room  for  the  ideals  of  humanity,  a  receiver  and 
transmitter  of  the  spiritual  aspirations  of  the  race. 
The  entrance  of  college  women  into  the  realm  of 
economic  production  should  mean  a  transformation 
of  the  quality  of  the  world's  industrial  life.  The  col- 
lege woman  in  business  will  either  sink  to  the  busi- 
ness level  or  will  lift  business  to  the  level  of  the  pro- 
fessions. She  will  either  say  frankly,  with  a  famous 
United  States  senator  of  a  former  generation, '  *  Busi- 
ness is  war;  the  commander  who  lost  a  battle  through 
the  activity  of  his  moral  nature  would  be  the  deri- 
sion and  the  jest  of  history;"  or  she  will  set  about 
the  task  of  making  all  private  business  a  kind  of 
public  service.  If  she  enters  industry  to  conduct  it 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  SERMON  13 

solely  on  the  maxims  of ' '  Poor  Richard '  s  Almanac , ' ' 
as  most  men  till  recently  have  done,  she  will  simply 
double  the  intensity  of  the  economic  struggle  and 
double  the  sordidness  of  the  spirit  which  controls  it. 

A  few  days  ago  one  of  the  largest  employers  in 
the  United  States  said  to  me :  * '  I  am  not  a  college 
man,  and  one  thing  puzzles  me.  Why  is  it  that  a 
college  education  is  no  guarantee  of  civic  devotion 
and  public  spirit?  Why  is  it  that  in  every  movement 
for  human  uplift,  for  the  promotion  of  human  rights, 
the  college  man  is  just  as  likely  to  be  on  the  wrong 
side  as  on  the  right  side?  Does  not  a  college  educa- 
tion really  make  for  fine  citizenship  ? ' ' 

With  shame  we  must  confess  that  the  education 
of  men  in  America  has  been  no  guarantee  of  civic 
loyalty.  Now  we  look  to  this  influx  of  womanhood 
into  economic  responsibility — which  must  involve 
certain  losses  —  we  look  to  it  for  certain  gains.  If 
womanhood  fails  us  here,  we  may  be  utterly  lost.  If 
women  bring  into  industry  only  emotional  and  sub- 
jective standards,  only  impressionism  and  sensitive- 
ness, then  their  coming  into  office  and  store  will  hurt 
rather  than  help  the  social  order.  But  if  they  bring 
their  great  capacities  for  unselfish  devotion,  for  loy- 
alty to  an  ideal,  for  making  drudgery  the  expres- 
sion of  religion,  if  they  bring  the  love  that  hopeth  all 
things,  believeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things, — 


14       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

then  they  will  transform  one  great  section  of  the 
world's  work.  Then,  in  place  of  the  philosophy  of 
* '  getting  on , "  we  may  have  an  ideal  of  service .  Then 
we  may  be  able  to  carry  conscience  into  industry, 
and  see  how  the  prosaic  man  behind  the  counter  and 
the  unheroic  girls  behind  the  loom  may  pass  their 
lives  as  soldiers  of  the  common  good. 

But  the  spiritual  gift  most  clearly  needed  to-day 
from  all  colleges,  whether  of  men  or  of  women,  is 
in  the  realm  of  international  relations.  The  appall- 
ing tragedy  of  Europe,  which  has  involved  already 
Asia  and  Africa  and  has  threatened  America,  has 
stripped  us  of  many  illusions  and  brought  home  to 
us  the  primitive  facts  of  national  and  racial  psychol- 
ogy. We  honestly  thought  that  such  horrid  modes 
of  warfare,  such  ruthless  disregard  of  plighted  faith, 
had  vanished  from  the  civilized  earth.  We  confi- 
dently affirmed  that  war  was  now  too  costly,  or  too 
dangerous,  to  be  declared ;  that  the  economic  loss  was 
so  clear,  the  physical  cruelty  so  terrible,  that  no  great 
war  could  come  again.  And  now  we  find  that  all  eco- 
nomic loss  is  disregarded,  all  cruelty  endured,  all 
burdens  of  sorrow  are  willingly  assumed,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  that  spiritual  enthusiasm  which  we  call  the 
sentiment  of  nationality.  We  find  that  the  roots  of 
war  are  not  in  the  desire  for  bread,  or  gold,  or  even 
for  the  safety  of  wife  and  child.  They  are  in  the  ideal 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  SERMON  15 

world,  and  the  things  which  are  seen — trenches, 
sieges,  battles — are  made  of  things  which  do  not 
appear.  The  roots  of  war  are  sentiments  of  devotion 
to  an  ideal  entity,  the  state,  to  an  invisible,  impalpa- 
ble somewhat  called  the  nation  or  the  race.  The  very- 
words  we  use  in  talking  of  the  war  elude  all  defi- 
nition. Kultur — what  is  it?  NationaHty — who  can 
define  it?  Racial  antagonism — how  explain  it?  We 
are  dealing  with  forces  purely  ideal — stronger  than 
codes  of  law,  or  siege-guns,  or  battleships.  And  if 
the  roots  of  war  are  ideal,  the  remedy  for  war  is  in 
the  ideal  realm  also.  In  the  spirit  of  man  lie  the  sen- 
timents out  of  which  war  came;  in  the  renovated 
spirit  of  man  lies  the  only  ultimate  cure.  The  war- 
ring world  is  crying  for  a  spiritual  gift,  for  the 
vision  which  can  see  the  unity  of  mankind  behind 
all  unlikeness,  for  the  love  which  can  repudiate  all 
** hymns  of  hate,"  for  the  conscience  which  will 
enact  the  same  laws  for  the  individual  as  for  the 
nation,  for  the  religion  which  believes  God  is  as  near 
to  the  black  man  and  the  yellow  as  to  the  proud 
Caucasian. 

The  great  gift  of  Jesus  to  humanity  was  the  gift 
of  a  new  spirit.  He  wrote  no  book.  He  left  no  rigid, 
organization.  He  erected  no  building.  His  gift  was 
seemingly  the  most  fragile  and  fugitive  in  all  the 
world,  and  it  has  proved  to  be  the  most  abiding: 


16       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  gift  of  a  new  attitude  toward  God  and  man, 
a  new  temper  in  human  hearts,  a  new  purpose  in 
human  society.  If  we  can,  through  the  American 
college,  convey  some  such  gift  to  the  world,  we  shall 
fulfill  the  most  ardent  hopes  of  those  who  laid  these 
foundations  in  sacrificial  toil  and  undying  faith. 


The  Anniversary  Addresses 


Vassar's  Contribution 

to  Educational  Theory  and  Practice 

BY  JAMES  MONROE  TAYLOR 

President  Emeritus  of  Fassar  College 

ON  such  a  day  as  this  one  can  almost  hear  the 
roll-call  of  the  heroes  of  the  faith,  who  through 
long  years  watched  and  prayed  and  waited  for  the 
deliverance  of  women  from  the  shackles  of  tradition 
which  bound  their  minds  to  narrow  limits  and  feared 
the  dawning  of  a  freer  day.  They  had  indeed  '  *  need 
of  patience,  that  after  they  had  done  the  will  of  God, 
they  might  receive  the  promises.  .  .  .  They  saw 
them  afar  off,  and  were  persuaded  of  them,  and  em- 
braced them.  .  .  .  Warned  of  God  of  things  not  seen 
as  yet,  they  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  out  of  weakness 
were  made  strong,  through  faith  subdued  kingdoms 
and  wrought  righteousness.  .  .  .  Of  whom  the  world 
was  not  worthy !  .  .  .  These  all,  having  obtained  a 
good  report  through  faith,  received  not  the  promise : 
God  having  provided  some  better  thing  for  us,  that 
they  without  us  should  not  be  made  perfect." 

Among  them  all  Emma  Willard  and  Mary  Lyon, 
great  personalities  which  tower  above  an  only  less 
distinguished  host  of  men  and  women,  must  never 
be  unmentioned  on  these  anniversary  occasions, — 
great  in  vision  and  in  practical  force,  and  pointing 


20       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  way  to  new  heights  from  which  should  be  caught 
the  glimpses  of  a  larger  kingdom.  For  these  women 
were  never  so  misled  as  to  fancy  they  were  estab- 
lishing colleges,  however  great  may  have  been  the 
prophetic  gift  vouchsafed  to  them.  The  distinctly 
collegiate  claim,  however,  was  soon  after  advanced 
by  Georgia  and  Mary  Sharp  at  the  south,  and  at 
Oberlin  in  the  northern  and  then  distant  western 
state  of  Ohio,  pioneers  of  a  multitude  that  between 
1830  and  1860  essayed  to  give  collegiate  training 
to  women.  When  Vassar  was  chartered  in  1861  sev- 
eral institutions  of  acknowledged  collegiate  grade 
admitted  women,  including  one  state  university, 
Iowa.  Did  Vassar,  opened  to  students  in  1865,  make 
any  original  contribution  to  this  educational  move- 
ment? 

Did  we  answer  that  question  with  a  plain  nega- 
tive, we  should  but  enroll  this  with  the  vast  majority 
of  colleges,  which  have  been  less  busy  in  initiating 
new  experiments  than  in  practicing  the  best  known 
principles  of  education.  The  claim  to  novelty  is  not 
generally  reassuring,  and  we  students  of  the  history 
of  education  are  too  well  used  to  the  promulgation 
of  old  theories  as  new  to  be  easily  duped  by  claims 
of  originality.  Yet  it  is  interesting  to  ask,  to-day,  if 
this  college  whose  position  is  so  distinguished  in  the 
history  of  woman's  education,  and  therefore  of  all 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         21 

education,  has  contributed  anything  comparatively 
new  to  the  theory  and  practice  of  its  time.  And  if  not 
new,  has  its  practice  introduced  or  fostered  aught 
that  has  seemed  new  to  its  generation? 

It  is  not  strange  that  to  the  popular  mind  Mat- 
thew Vassar  seemed  an  originator  of  a  new  move- 
ment in  educational  history, — and  there  was  no 
small  measure  of  truth  in  the  belief.  When  Vassar 
was  chartered,  how  many  young  women  were  there 
in  the  world  who  had  received  college  degrees  from 
recognized  institutions?  It  is  not  easy  to  give  an  ac- 
curate answer,  but  perhaps  two  hundred  had  the 
A.B.  degree, — most  of  them  from  Oberlin  and  El- 
mira, — more  the  B.S.,  which  was  distinctly  inferior, 
or  the  B.L.,  which  always  marked  a  still  weaker 
course,  or  some  forgotten  degree,  such  as  M.E.L. 
or  L.A.  The  total  was  so  small  that  it  had  made  no 
impression  on  American  society,  and  when  Elmira 
was  chartered  as  late  as  1855,  apprehension  was  rife 
as  to  results  in  the  small  circle  that  noticed  the  fact 
at  all,  and  even  professors  and  college  presidents  ex- 
pressed themselves  in  a  way  that  argued  quite  com- 
plete ignorance  of  what  Oberlin  had  done  for  twenty 
years.  So  widely  trained  an  educational  expert  as 
Milo  P.  Jewett,  whose  influential  career  in  Mas- 
sachusetts had  been  followed  by  a  professorship  at 
Marietta,  Ohio,  and  who  was  familiar  with  edu- 


22       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

cation  at  the  south  by  long  experience,  assured 
Mr.  Vassar  that  he  was  establishing  "a  new  thing 
under  the  sun,"  and  that  the  foundation  of  a  great 
college  for  women  with  standards  like  those  of  the 
better  colleges  for  men,  well  endowed,  recognizing 
the  claim  of  every  side  of  education  and  culture, 
physical,  mental,  spiritual,  social,  would  place  his 
name  among  the  great  originators.  No  one^who 
reads  the  newspapers  and  magazines  of  that  time 
can  fail  to  see  that  whatever  others  had  done,  to  the 
masses  and  to  the  educated  classes,  in  general,  this 
seemed  something  new.  And  so  indeed  it  was!  If 
the  idea  was  not  original,  yet  Mr.  Vassar's  grasp 
of  it  was  new  and  unexampled,  and  his  vision  of 
the  requirements  of  such  a  college  for  women  was 
as  unprecedented  as  his  effort  to  make  the  dream  a 
substantial  fact. 

The  educational  plan  of  President  Jewett,  if  not 
original,  seemed  so  to  all  northern  teachers.  It  was 
a  daring  novelty  as  applied  to  women,  a  university 
scheme,  a  series  of  schools  Hke  those  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia,  in  which  students  should  com- 
plete a  definite  number  of  courses  to  obtain  the  Mas- 
ter's degree.  It  questioned  the  procrustean  four  years' 
course,  introduced  a  group  system  and  election 
among  groups,  discussed  fully  the  objections  to  an 
elective  system  (remember  that  this  was  in  1863  !), 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         23 

favored  teaching  without  text-books,  and  written  ex- 
aminations, then  little  known  in  our  colleges.  Such 
a  scheme,  supplemented  by  the  visions  Jewett  por- 
trayed for  Mr.  Vassar,  before  1860 — endowments, 
apparatus,  libraries,  art-gallery,  museum,  physical 
training,  a  college  home  in  an  attractive  park — jus- 
tifies some  claim  to  originality. 

The  break  of  friendly  relations  between  the  presi- 
dent and  Mr.  Vassar  defeated  the  trial  of  the  novel 
plan,  and  Dr.  Raymond,  who  was  rightly  convinced 
that  young  women  then  needed  rigor  and  guidance 
rather  than  freedom  of  election,  offered  a  curriculum 
similar  to  that  of  the  typical  American  college  with 
such  modifications  as  were  thought  to  be  called  for 
by  women.  His  discussions  show  full  grasp  of  the 
questions  raised  then  and  now,  regarding  the  special 
needs  of  girls,  the  demands  on  educated  women,  and 
the  responsibility  to  society  of  the  woman's  college. 
Recognizing  that  there  must  be  much  experiment, 
he  yet  entrenched  himself  securely  in  the  threefold 
conviction  that  the  course  must  be  liberal  and  of  full 
collegiate  grade,  and  must  not  be  a  servile  copy  of 
existing  models.  If  anything  could  be  found  better 
adapted  to  woman's  needs,  he  said,  change  must  be 
made  '*  without  hesitation."  The  claim  of  aesthetic 
culture  seemed  clear, — more  attention  to  literature, 
chiefly  notable  then  in  our  curricula  by  its  absence. 


24       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

more  emphasis  on  art  and  music.  But  was  anything 
else  clear?  Practical  studies  are  urged,  but  he  asks 
what  are  practical,  and  what  not?  The  question  was 
answered  by  a  promise  of  opportunity  for  instruc- 
tion in  domestic  employment  and  business  methods, 
which  was  not  fulfilled  because  *  *  the  trustees  were 
satisfied  that  a  full  course  could  not  be  successfully 
incorporated  into  a  liberal  education." 

See  now  what  this  signifies.  Here  was  a  broad 
course  of  study,  a  faculty  which  contained  several 
men  well  known  in  their  work  and  one  distinguished 
woman,  and  laboratories  for  the  sciences  such  as 
few  colleges  could  then  boast.  Note  it  as  evidence 
of  outlook  and  advanced  stand,  that  when  the  first 
building.  Main,  was  erected  (1861-65),  provision 
was  made  for  a  students'  laboratory  (then  very 
uncommon  in  America).  As  early  as  1874,  when 
Dr.  Cooley  came  to  Vassar,  he  found  a  large  senior 
class  ready  for  laboratory  work  in  qualitative  analy- 
sis, provided  with  the  most  recent  text-book  de- 
signed for  classes  in  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology;  and  this  laboratory  work  was  neces- 
sary for  a  degree.  And  Vassar  kept  pace  with  the 
later  advance  in  educational  practice  when,  in  1880, 
she  built  and  equipped  the  Vassar  Brothers  Labora- 
tory for  general  work.  From  the  opening  there  was 
an  observatory  with  a  telescope,  then  second  or  third 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        25 

in  size  in  the  country ;  a  "  cabinet,  "as  it  was  then 
called,  reckoned  rare  and  excellent  by  such  a  leader 
of  geological  science  as  Dana ;  an  art- gallery,  the 
equal  of  which  did  not  exist  in  more  than  one  or 
two  American  colleges;  a  gymnasium,  where  the 
best  physical  system  at  that  time  known  for  women, 
Dio  Lewis's,  was  installed ;  a  riding-school  fully 
equipped,  even  to  a  German  baron  and  his  wife;  a 
music  school,  well  furnished;  a  small  but  growing 
library,  and  ambitions  and  ideals  beyond  limit.  Mark 
this !  As  Jewett  promised,  it  was ' '  a  new  thing  under 
the  sun." 

The  popular  impression  was  not  a  mistake.  And 
remember,  all  this  was  prepared  during  our  great 
war,  which  had  closed  the  southern  colleges  and  re- 
duced and  almost  extinguished  educational  inter- 
est in  many  northern  institutions.  When  the  war 
closed,  in  1865,  leaving  through  the  north  a  vastly 
awakened  and  intensified  life  and  deeply  developed 
and  broadened  interests  among  women,  who  had 
learned  organization  and  wider  service  in  local  so- 
cieties, sanitary  commissions,  and  at  the  front,  Vas- 
sar  threw  open  its  doors  to  meet  this  great  new  de- 
mand with  such  an  answer  as  the  world  had  never 
before  given  to  womankind.  No  wonder  that  other, 
less  prominent  efforts  were  for  the  time  forgotten 
or  obscured !  The  hour  had  struck,  and  the  new  call 


26       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

was  greeted  with  an  answer  unprecedented  in  all 
the  annals  of  woman's  efforts  and  woman's  aspi- 
ration. Matthew  Vassar  received  no  more  than  he 
deserved.  If  not,  in  our  objective  way  of  reading 
history,  strictly  an  innovator,  he  was  virtually  an 
originator,  as  he  thought  himself  to  be,  and  his 
new  institution  offered  a  novelty  in  education  and  an 
answer  to  what  was  then  practically  a  new  demand. 

Let  us  note  particularly  that  this  offer  of  a  broad 
education  for  woman,  without  relation  to  what  was 
thought  to  be  her  special  sphere  or  responsibility, 
then  practically  a  novelty,  was  deliberate  and  not  ac- 
cidental. We  are  told  commonly  that  the  first  trus- 
tees and  faculty  of  this  woman's  college  aimed  to 
give  woman  a  man's  education,  the  only  one  then 
available  and  understood  by  them,  that  no  other 
point  of  view  occurred  to  the  pioneers,  and  that  it 
is  left  to  us,  their  wiser  children,  women  having 
now  proved  their  capacity,  to  indicate  the  special 
directions  in  which  they  may  apply  their  abilities 
without  wasting  them  in  lines  better  fitted  for  the 
masculine  mind  and  life.  In  short,  it  is  said,  our 
fathers  were  so  enamored  of  this  ideal  of  equal  edu- 
cation that  they  had  no  thought  for  differentiations 
demanded  by  differences  of  sex. 

So  far  as  the  first  trustees  of  Vassar  are  concerned, 
this  is  pure  fiction.  I  wish  I  might  so  emphasize  this 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        27 

as  to  make  some  slight  impression  on  an  accepted 
tradition  and  on  reiterated  assertions  of  those  unfa- 
miliar with  the  original  records.  They  never  forgot 
that  they  were  acting  for  women.  Their  letters,  their 
discussions,  their  formulated  plans,  abound  in  evi- 
dence that  they  were  seeking  all  the  time  for  the 
supposed  demands  of  a  girl's  mind  and  its  special 
limitations.  The  Founder,  a  plain  man,  awakened 
to  this  ambition  late  in  life,  wished  a  woman  to  have 
all  the  rights  she  could  use,  but  was  most  cautious, 
in  defining  those  rights,  to  emphasize  her  intellect- 
ual independence  and  claims.  Dr.  Jewett  kept  in 
mind  in  all  he  did  the  consideration  of  the  peculiar 
needs  of  women,  and  President  Raymond's  ''Pro- 
spectus ' '  acknowledged  them  and  promised  oppor- 
tunities for  domestic  training  and  ' '  peculiarly  fem- 
inine employment,"  such  as  telegraphy  and  pho- 
nography, practical  lessons  in  decoration  of  rooms, 
dress,  flowers,  etc.  He  sought  not  a  man's  educa- 
tion, he  said,  "but  one  suited  to  the  sex."  While 
the  essentially  similar  intellectual  faculty  of  girls 
would  be  answered  by  the  ordinary  college  cur- 
riculum, constitutional  differences,  intellectual  and 
moral,  would  be  kept  in  view,  he  assured  the  pub- 
lic. The  first  lady  principal,  a  lady  of  the  old  school, 
emphasized  constantly  the  importance  of  cultivat- 
ing the  feminine  graces  and  powers  in  a  woman's 


28       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

college.  They  were  all  awake  to  the  question  as  to 
what  the  mysterious  mental  difference  might  be  in 
girls  of  eighteen  to  twenty  as  compared  with  their 
brothers  of  like  age. 

Why,  then,  do  you  ask,  was  there  so  little  to  dis- 
tinguish the  course  at  Vassar  from  the  general  cur- 
riculum of  the  American  colleges  of  the  sixties?  Be- 
cause in  actual  observation  and  experience  they  could 
not  discover  such  mental  peculiarities  as  called  for 
different  training  in  a  general,  liberal  education,  such 
as  a  college  is  supposed  to  give  to  undergraduates. 
Were  they  not  confronted  with  the  vocational  issues 
of  to-day?  Did  they  have  no  discernment  of  woman's 
special  function  in  the  home,  no  understanding  of 
the  responsibilities  of  motherhood,  no  knowledge  of 
the  need  of  a  girl  to  cook  and  sew,  and  administer 
a  household  and  care  for  children  ?  They  were  old- 
fashioned  folk,  these  fathers.  So  far  as  I  know,  there 
was  not  among  them  one  who  was  likely  to  forget 
"woman's  sphere,"  or  to  fail  to  define  it  in  a  way 
satisfactory  to  those  most  concerned  for  these  things 
to-day.  Moreover,  from  the  press  and  occasional 
correspondents  came  brisk  reminders  of  woman's 
proper  "empire."  It  has  not  been  left  to  our  day, 
be  it  said  to  our  younger  contemporaries,  to  discover 
how  important  to  women  is  a  knowledge  of  domes- 
tic science  and  of  the  birth  and  care  of  children. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        29 

How  did  it  happen,  then,  that  all  promises  were 
forgotten  and  all  plans  canceled  which  looked  toward 
such  instruction  in  the  first  Vassar?  Because  Mr. 
Vassar  wished  the  daughters  to  have  the  intellect- 
ual opportunities  and  the  means  of  culture  which 
were  so  freely  provided  for  the  sons ;  because  he  and 
his  trustees  had  faith  that  such  training  of  body, 
mind,  and  spirit  as  they  planned  would  prove  better, 
broader,  and  more  promising  than  special  educa- 
tion, and  immensely  superior  in  its  provision  for  the 
resources  of  maturer  life.  Moreover,  with  all  their 
search  they  were  unable  to  find  such  intellectual 
peculiarities  in  the  feminine  mind  as  should  change 
the  essential  elements  of  education.  No  one  who 
reads  the  reports  of  the  hundreds  who  applied  for 
entrance  to  Vassar  fifty  years  ago  can  doubt  that 
American  education  for  girls  was  in  the  main  piti- 
able, superficial,  and  deadening.  Dr.  Raymond  said 
in  his  Vienna  report — and  no  one  knew  as  well  as 
he — that  it  was  ''a  sham."  The  fathers  therefore 
had  a  duty  to  womankind,  to  educate  girls  really,  to 
train  them  to  study,  read,  and  think,  and  to  awaken 
them  to  loftier  ideals.  They  chose  the  instrument  at 
hand,  not  because  it  was  for  men:  Jewett  had  been 
teaching  girls  for  sixteen  years  in  Alabama.  They 
had  failed  to  discover  the  subtle  distinctions  which 
demanded  another  kind  of  mental  training  for  wo- 


30       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

men, — just  as  our  wise  generation  has  also  failed. 
Woman  should  have  a  chance:  that  was  Mr.  Vas- 
sar's  purpose.  The  life  is  more  than  meat.  She  should 
be  educated,  therefore,  not  as  home-maker,  not  as 
mother,  but  as  an  individual ;  so  that  whatever  her 
life  might  be,  she  should  give  herself  to  home, 
family,  social  life,  public  service,  with  all  the  better 
equipment,  skill,  and  accomplishment  because  she 
herself  was  trained. 

Some  of  you  think  that  times  have  changed  and 
that  the  demand  on  women  calls  for  another  kind  of 
education.  But  one  thing  has  not  changed  and  will 
not  change, —  the  need  of  a  soul  for  its  own  develop- 
ment, for  resource,  for  mental  breadth  and  outlook, 
unharried  by  immediate  needs,  or  the  fancied  call 
of  a  sphere  that  may  never  be  aught  but  a  fancy 
and  a  vision.  Let  no  word  of  mine  be  thought  to  re- 
flect on  other  modes  of  education  as  meeting  specific 
demands  or  immediate  calls.  I  give  them  my  un- 
qualified respect  and  sympathy,  as  means  to  partic- 
ular ends.  Liberal  education,  however,  has  broader 
promise  and  resource  and  inspiration  for  the  soul's 
life,  and  that  is  fundamental  in  our  preparation  for 
special  work,  for  professional  life,  for  social  service, 
for  the  ministry  to  church  or  state.  Larger-souled 
men  and  women  are  quite  as  important  to-day  as 
those  stamped  with  efficiency. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        31 

The  new  tendency  among  women,  so  many  of 
whom  clamor  now  for  the  specific  before  the  gen- 
eral,— to  learn  to  teach,  for  example,  before  they 
have  anything  to  teach, — is  a  backward  step  to  the 
times  before  Vassar,  singling  women  out  again 
for  special  spheres  instead  of  training  them  well  to 
choose  and  fix  their  spheres.  It  is  the  old  argument 
revived  of  a  writer  in  ''Godey's  Lady's  Book"  of 
1865,  that  men's  colleges,  forsooth,  are  preparatory, 
but  a  seminary  for  young  ladies  is  designed  ' '  to 
complete  the  education  of  its  inmates,"  that  is,  to 
fit  them  for  their  specific  sphere.  Watch  your  her- 
itage, college  women !  Watch  the  tendencies  to  re- 
duce your  colleges  of  liberal  learning  by  a  theory 
which  would  logically  make  our  colleges  for  men 
into  schools  of  business,  professions,  training  for  fa- 
therhood, education  in  blacksmithing  or  for  bank 
clerks.  Better  housekeepers,  wives,  mothers,  teach- 
ers, social  workers,  stenographers,  saleswomen, — 
yes !  yes !  Our  need  is  manifest.  But  better  women, 
first  of  all,  larger  in  grasp,  wider  of  vision,  fuller 
of  resource  for  the  soul  in  the  conflicts  of  these  latter 
days, — that  was  the  message,  practically  new,  that 
Vassar  flashed  on  a  questioning  world.  We  must 
indeed  meet  the  needs  of  our  time,  but  what  are 
its  chief  needs?  Sane  vision ;  calm  weighing  of  the- 
ories that  seem  to  threaten  with  dire  signs  home 


32       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

and  church  and  state,  and  as  never  before  the  very 
existence  of  the  democracy  we  love  and  treasure ; 
broad  views  of  life's  responsibilities;  the  spirit  that 
knows  that  violence  destroys  and  never  constructs ; 
and  hope  and  faith  as  well  as  fearlessness.  Where 
shall  we  put  our  chief  emphasis?  that  is  the  ques- 
tion. On  bread,  or  * '  on  every  word  of  God  "  ?  It  was 
the  Master's  answer  to  the  tempter  that  we  may 
well  carry  into  all  our  ideals  of  education:  "Man 
shall  not  live  by  bread  alone."  On  a  hard  and  over- 
worked material  efficiency  that  eventuates  in  horrid 
and  all-destroying  war?  Or  on  the  trained  spirit 
which,  while  efficient,  can  yet  see  visions  and  dream 
dreams  ? 

Here,  then,  was  the  first,  great,  chief  contribu- 
tion Vassar  made  fifty  years  ago  to  educational  the- 
ory and  practice,  with  a  new  emphasis  such  as  it  had 
never  before  received.  Confronting  the  prejudices  of 
the  day ,  thou  gh  firm  believers  in  woman '  s  sphere  and 
specific  duties,  these  first  trustees  of  Vassar  declared 
that  women  should  have  here  the  opportunity  of 
broad  and  liberal  training,  leaving  the  question  of 
its  specific  use  for  their  own  determination  in  ma- 
turer  years.  It  was  a  great  contribution,  in  1865, 
the  year  of  the  closing  of  our  Civil  War.  It  was  even 
then  recognized  as  such,  and  by  most  it  was  believed 
to  be  new. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        33 

For  ten  years  Vassar  stood  quite  alone  in  the  pop- 
ular estimate.  Again  it  was  not  alone,  but  to  most  it 
seemed  so.  It  was  the  special  exponent  of  a  cause 
and  the  special  butt  as  well  of  the  foes  of  that  cause. 
What  in  those  years  before  Smith  and  Wellesley 
opened,  and  while  the  state  universities  were  tar- 
dily falling  into  line,  was  the  contribution  of  Vassar 
to  the  great  issue?  We  have  a  notable  pamphlet 
which  in  part  tells  the  story,  President  Raymond's 
report  for  the  world  exposition  at  Vienna  in  1873. 
It  shows  that  there  was  no  occasion  for  an  apolo- 
getic stand  on  Vassar 's  part  toward  other  colleges, 
under  the  standards  and  limitations  of  the  period 
immediately  following  our  great  war.  A  want  of  his- 
torical perspective  is  revealed  in  judging  the  Vas- 
sar of  that  time  by  the  standards  of  to-day.  The 
presence  of  a  preparatory  department,  for  years  a 
grim  necessity,  social  rules  adapted  for  that  very  dif- 
ferent epoch,  and  a  curriculum  quite  unlike  that  of 
to-day,  are  no  impeachment  of  Vassar's  stand  from 
1865  to  1875. 

It  is  with  the  college  of  that  day  that  it  must  be 
compared,  and  it  bears  the  comparison  well,  in  cur- 
riculum, in  the  enforcement  of  its  standards  (quite 
another  thing),  and  in  its  products.  Fourteen  years 
after  Vassar  opened,  in  1879,  President  Barnard, 
whose  services  to  woman's  education  must  always 


34       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

be  remembered  with  gratitude,  thought  that  no  sep- 
arate college  could  meet  the  standards  of  the  insti- 
tutions for  men,  but  his  addresses  show  sometimes 
a  want  of  actual  knowledge  of  what  Vassar  was 
really  doing,  and  an  undervaluation  of  the  ideals  and 
equipment  and  faculties  of  the  younger  colleges  for 
women  now  opened,  to  say  nothing  of  an  idealizing 
of  the  relations  of  the  equipment  of  a  university  to 
actual  undergraduate  requirements  and  use.  Vas- 
sar's  president  was  a  very  able  leader  and  was  fully 
accustomed  to  college  ideals  and  standards,  and  in 
.  the  small  faculty  were  several  well-known  scholars 
and  teachers,  eminent  then  or  since,  with  experience 
in  colleges  for  men,  and  with  tremendous  determi- 
nation and  enthusiasm  to  make  the  new  effort  worthy 
of  the  fellowship  of  the  best.  Moreover,  they  were 
met  by  an  eagerness  and  purpose  on  the  part  of  their 
students  not  so  manifest  among  young  men,  and 
a  sense  of  responsibility  for  a  new  cause  that  domi- 
nated their  conduct.  The  sciences,  as  we  have  seen, 
were  remarkably  well  equipped  for  that  day,  and 
the  standards  in  the  older  disciplines  of  mathematics 
and  the  languages,  which  constituted  the  bulk  of  the 
studies  of  that  time,  were  as  high  and  as  well  main- 
tained as  at  most  American  institutions. 

In  those  ten  years,  then,  Vassar  demonstrated  that 
a  woman's  college,  well  equipped  and  well  officered, 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         35 

could  maintain  high  collegiate  standards,  could  train 
women  intellectually  as  well  as  their  brothers  were 
trained,  and  could  fit  them  for  life,  in  public  or 
private  service, — yes,  for  woman's  life!  Scholars 
indeed  were  few,  and  that  was  also  true  in  the  col- 
leges for  men  ;  and  for  women  there  were  almost  no 
encouragements  outside  the  love  of  learning.  Yet  of 
three  hundred  and  twenty-three  who  graduated  in 
the  first  ten  classes,  thirty -five  were  officers  and  in- 
structors in  colleges  in  1900,  twenty  of  these  in  col- 
leges of  the  Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae,  and 
thirteen  were  heads  of  private  academies.  Thirty- 
five  had  taken  the  Master's  degree ;  three  had  won 
the  S.B.,  and  two  the  Ph.D.  (by  1900);  and  re- 
member that  in  those  days  few  men  took  a  Ph.D. 
in  course.  Upwards  of  thirty  wrote  books  or  contrib- 
uted to  magazines,  besides  eleven  who  wrote  text- 
books. Twelve  were  physicians,  striving  against 
great  prejudice.  Four  were  artists,  two  farmers,  two 
book-keepers.  Though  the  great  movement  of  or- 
ganized philanthropy  came  later,  three  held  admin- 
istrative positions,  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
had  taught,  one- third  of  whom  had  been  married 
before  1900.  Of  the  whole  number,  56.03  per  cent 
married,  one  hundred  and  eighty-one  out  of  three 
hundred  and  twenty-three;  and  they  had  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty-one  children,  an  average  of  two  to  a 


36       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

marriage,  but  five  of  them  had  six  each ;  two  hun- 
dred and  four  were  boys  and  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
seven  girls.  Sixty-nine  of  these  graduates  had  died 
by  1900.  These  three  hundred  women  had  proved 
by  their  normality  and  efficiency  that  college  women 
were  of  value  in  home  and  church  and  state,  and  in 
all  spheres  influenced  by  woman's  life.  The  fears 
of  men  had  not  been  realized:  the  girl  student  after 
all  did  not  talk  Greek  to  the  college  man's  well-gar- 
nished slang,  and  Sidney  Smith's  old  sneer  was  veri- 
fied in  that  she  did  not  generally  prefer  a  quadratic 
equation  to  a  baby. 

Vassar  had  met  the  challenge  of  an  unbelieving 
world,  and  made  the  conflict  less  poignant  for  all 
who  should  come  after  her.  The  arguments  against 
woman's  physical  and  mental  capacity,  the  fears 
that  a  college  training  would  unsex  her  and  destroy 
her  faith,  and  separate  her  from  interest  in  woman's 
life  and  functions  in  the  world,  were  chiefly  directed 
against  Vassar.  The  supposed  necessary  weakness 
of  a  curriculum  for  women  was  tested  at  her  door. 
The  fear  that  girls  could  not  be  held  to  exact  results 
and  solid  discipline  was  met  in  her  class-rooms.  The 
expectation  of  abnormality  and  morbidity  was 
answered  by  the  strong  life  of  her  graduates.  In  a 
degree  not  true  of  any  other  college,  because  of  her 
equipment  and  her  prominence,  she  was  forcing  on 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         Z7 

the  world  attention  to  the  new  demands  of  women, 
advocating  their  claims,  setting  standards  that  com- 
pelled acknowledgment,  and  educating  leaders  for 
the  colleges  yet  to  be.  Patiently,  against  want  of 
faith  and  want  of  interest,  against  false  views  and 
prejudiced  antagonisms,  Vassar  led  the  battle  for  the 
better  day,  and  slowly,  slowly  —  too  slowly  —  won 
at  last  the  recognition  she  had  long  deserved  through 
her  honesty  and  thoroughness.  If  history  does  not 
strictly  give  her  the  priority  among  colleges  educat- 
ing women,  it  must  allow  that  her  place  and  work 
through  these  ten  years  made  her  first  in  responsi- 
bility and  first  in  achievement. 

The  later  problems  concern  us  less  to-day  because 
the  life  of  the  pioneer  was  now  merged  in  the  gen- 
eral movement.  To  improve  American  standards  of 
scholarship,  to  make  scholarly  men  and  women  as 
well  as  scholars,  and  so  to  train  them  as  to  make 
them  more  useful  in  society  and  the  nation,  was  the 
task  of  all,  and  involved  no  peculiar  service  from 
Vassar.  But  be  it  ever  remembered  that  for  many 
years  there  was  no  equal  opportunity  for  the  woman 
scholar,  even  indeed  if  now  there  is. 

Yet  throughout  this  period,  in  the  spirit  of  Amer- 
ican individuality,  each  college  was  aiming  at  the 
goal  in  its  own  way.  Will  it  not  indeed  be  a  sorry, 
dismal  day  for  our  colleges  when  the  standardizers 


38       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

and  apostles  of  efficiency  succeed  in  reducing  them 
to  the  deadly  and  deadening  unity  to  which  they 
have  brought,  for  instance,  the  hotels  of  Europe? 
Many  believed,  and  now  believe,  that  every  college 
should  establish  and  maintain  graduate  work.  The 
problem  seemed  vital  to  Vassar.  To  many  of  its  fac- 
ulty and  trustees  it  seemed  clear  that  more  diiferen- 
tiation  was  needed  in  American  education,  and  that 
the  efforts  of  most  institutions  to  carry  on  graduate 
work  must  result  either  in  hindering  undergradu- 
ate progress  or  in  superficializing  graduate  study. 
The  subject  was  carefully  considered,  extensive  cor- 
respondence was  held  with  leaders  of  American 
education,  and  in  1894  Vassar  withdrew  the  offer  of 
the  Doctor's  degree  and  limited  the  advanced  work 
offered  by  the  college  to  study  for  the  Master's  de- 
gree, and  for  the  encouragement  of  higher  scholar- 
ship undertook  the  establishment  of  fellowships  for 
study  at  universities. 

Some  of  you  think  Vassar  gave  a  wrong  answer 
to  the  question.  To  my  own  fresh  memory  of  condi- 
tions then, — the  weak  graduate  courses  at  so  many 
of  our  colleges,  and  the  offer  of  the  Doctor's  degree 
where  there  was  no  possibility  of  giving  the  work 
which  should  underlie  it, — the  stand  of  Vassar 
seems  a  distinct  contribution  to  the  scholarly  ideals 
of  that  time,  taken  by  a  college  then  as  able  as  most 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         39 

of  its  compeers  to  offer  graduate  work,  and  deliber- 
ately taken  in  what  seemed  to  it  the  interest  of  under- 
graduate thoroughness  and  for  the  clarifying  of  the 
ideals  of  graduate  scholarship.  For  Vassar,  at  least, 
the  plan  has  worked  successfully,  and  large  numbers 
have  gone  from  her  classes  to  study  in  various  uni- 
versities. Last  year  ten  fellowships  were  awarded 
for  that  purpose.  Meanwhile,  the  college  gained 
greater  opportunity  to  study  and  develop  the  condi- 
tions of  undergraduate  teaching  and  progress. 

One  other  principal  problem  has  beset  our  col- 
leges during  this  period, — the  enormous  increase  in 
the  numbers  of  undergraduates  and  the  relation  of 
this  to  efficient  work.  To  some  that  has  not  seemed  a 
problem  at  all,  but  almost  everywhere  one  has  heard 
an  undertone  of  questioning  if  perhaps  numbers 
might  not  become  too  great  for  efficient  handling, 
until  the  habit  of  the  mob  should  dominate  the  col- 
lege. Certainly  the  question  is  two-sided.  The  large 
college  has  great  advantages,  and  just  as  unques- 
tionable are  the  claims  of  the  small,  if  both  are  well 
equipped  and  well  disciplined.  Whether  there  might 
not  be  a  compromise  is  open  to  trial.  Would  not  a 
college  establishing  several  distinct  units,  bound 
by  one  tradition,  one  government,  one  worship,  one 
central  library,  but  developing  in  each  unit  distinct 
characteristics  due  to  separate  faculties  and  deans, 


40       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

unite  the  advantages  of  the  large  and  small  ?  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  the  funds  at  Vassar  were  not  suffi- 
cient for  the  hopeful  experiment ;  and  it  was  boldly 
decided  to  limit  its  students  to  one  thousand.  For 
many  years  it  has  adhered  to  this  policy,  meeting 
many  practical  difficulties,  sometimes  miscalculat- 
ing the  number  of  its  accepted  candidates,  but  al- 
ways honestly,  and  generally  successfully,  holding 
to  its  policy.  It  has  found,  again,  its  energy  set  free 
for  its  undergraduates  in  giving  to  the  thousand  all 
the  care  and  thought  involved  in  providing  for  un- 
certain but  surely  increasing  numbers.  The  eifort  to 
add  to  the  buildings,  the  necessary  reconstruction  of 
the  '*  plant," — so-called,  —  to  answer  to  the  larger 
college,  the  sudden  adjustments  of  the  faculty,  have 
given  way  to  the  focusing  of  attention  on  a  definite 
problem.  As  no  limit  was  placed  on  faculty  or  courses 
offered,  these  have  increased  while  the  student  body 
has  remained  practically  stationary. 

The  contribution  of  Vassar  to  the  social  aspect 
of  educational  theory  and  practice  deserves  a  tribute. 
Our  American  colleges  have  seen  periods  when  in 
loco  parentis  was  read  literally  and  extremely;  others 
when  the  class-room  has  seemed  to  bound  the  teach- 
er's vision  of  responsibility  (with  due  injury  to  the- 
ories of  teaching  as  well) ;  and  others  still,  when  to 
a  full  recognition  of  the  independence  of  the  young 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        41 

has  been  added  a  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  expe- 
rience to  inexperience,  and  of  maturity  to  youth. 
Probably  women's  colleges  have  been  more  prone, 
from  the  nature  of  things,  to  remember  this  aspect 
of  the  teacher's  duty.  At  least  it  is  true  that  Vas- 
sar  in  its  earliest  history  put  forth  boldly,  strongly, 
and  with  conviction  the  theory  of  a  "  guarded  edu- 
cation," the  fact  of  responsibility  assumed  necessa- 
rily and  inevitably  by  any  body  of  older  people  who 
admit  to  their  circle  of  influence  inexperienced  and 
untried  youth.  It  founded  a  lady  principalship  which 
should  have  special  care  of  the  social  interests  and 
life  of  students,  which  should  offer  them  friendly 
counsel  and  should  try  to  meet  their  problems  with 
them,  by  sympathy,  advice,  and  regulation.  It  never 
recognized  the  theory  that  students  may  shock  all 
the  conventions  of  a  refined  moral  society  with  im- 
punity. No  woman's  college  then — or  even  now  — 
could  be  as  indifferent  to  this  as  colleges  for  men 
have  too  often  been.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  regu- 
lations were  established  that  seemed  to  older  girls 
like  the  rules  of  a  boarding-school,  and  so  it  hap- 
pened that  they  were  relaxed  as  society  became  freer 
and  as  young  women  proved  their  own  inherent  love 
of  order  and  reasoned  life. 

But  mere  regulation  was  not  its  chief  purpose. 
Some  like  to  scoff  at  ** influence,"  as  if  implying 


42       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

something  vague  and  sentimental  and  unappeal- 
ing to  reason,  yet  the  influence  of  such  a  personality 
as  Hannah  Lyman's,  that  instilled  into  the  college 
generations  qualities  of  womanly  force,  regard  for 
law,  religious  interest,  hatred  of  the  coarse,  ungen- 
tle, and  bizarre,  and  respect  for  the  characteristics 
in  speech  and  act  of  the  true,  refined  lady ;  the  in- 
fluence of  Mrs.  Kendrick  (to  name  only  the  first 
and  last  of  an  honored  line),  who  for  twenty  of  these 
fifty  years,  by  her  cultivated  mind  and  heart,  her 
poise  and  great  social  gifts,  her  ideals  and  her  sane 
Christian  faith,  impressed  thousands  of  young  wo- 
men :  these  are  to  be  reckoned  with  as  forces  in  edu- 
cation, intellectual  as  well  as  spiritual,  and  they  are 
among  Vassar's  distinct,  deliberate,  and  purposed 
contributions  to  educational  theory  and  practice. 

There  has  been  no  lack  here  of  recognition  of 
the  student.  No  college  could  have  believed  more  in 
its  students,  or  more  fully  trusted  them.  But  Vassar 
has  thus  far  adopted  no  extreme  form  of  student 
government.  There  is  a  splendid,  but  crude  indi- 
viduality at  twenty,  full  of  self-assertion  that  life 
will  train  down,  unbalanced  because  inexperienced, 
which  sees  all  reform  without  fringes  of  compara- 
tive good  and  bad,  a  condition  non-existent  outside 
the  fancy  of  an  enthusiast.  To  learn  restraint,  pa- 
tience, knowledge  before  utterance ;  to  gain  also  from 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        43 

the  experience  of  one's  elders,  and  not  merely  from 
crass  and  wasteful  experiment,  is  the  meaning  of  ed- 
ucation. The  very  continuity  of  an  institution's  life 
demands  more  than  a  changeful  rule.  The  splen- 
did enthusiasm  and  unbalanced  individuality  of 
youth  must  beat  against  the  policies  that  express 
the  experience  of  maturity;  and  experience  and 
knowledge  have  to  answer  to  this  trust,  not  so  much 
to  the  youth  of  to-day,  as  to  this  same  youth  chas- 
tened, disciplined,  and  ripened  by  ten  years  of  life 
in  a  world  that  measures  rigidly  and  judges  harshly, 
and  only  by  results.  Is  it  not  worthy  of  note  that 
the  graduates  of  our  colleges  of  ten  years'  standing 
generally  remark  on  the  tendencies  to  license  in  the 
undergraduate? 

Whether  we  will  or  not,  faculty  and  trustees  and 
administrative  officers  must  answer  to  families  and 
to  society  for  the  influences  that  gather  about  their 
students.  Happily,  in  late  years,  at  Harvard  and 
Yale,  at  Columbia  and  Princeton,  and  at  a  host  of 
American  colleges,  there  has  been  a  growing  con- 
viction that  we  are  responsible  for  our  youth,  and 
are  wrong,  unutterably  wrong,  if  we  cast  them  off* 
from  our  counsel  and  our  sympathy.  We  are  learn- 
ing, perhaps,  that  the  ten  commandments  have  as 
large  a  place  in  real  education  as  Livy 's  ' '  Preface, ' ' 
and  the  spirit  of  Christ  as  great  a  claim  as  the  charm 


44      VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

of  Chaucer.  At  least,  so  thought  the  founders  of  Vas- 
sar  when  they  established  an  office  whose  function 
was  a  splendid  influence  for  life  through  nearly  fifty 
years.  When  in  1913  the  last  incumbent  resigned, 
new  conditions  calling  for  larger  organization  and 
greater  division  of  labor  led  to  a  reorganization;  but 
in  the  wardens,  united  as  a  committee  with  their 
head- warden,  the  college  expressly  aims  to  recog- 
nize and  continue  an  influence  that  has  been  immeas- 
urable in  preserving  manners,  sanity,  loyalty,  faith, 
and  large  intellectual  and  social  ideals,  through  all 
these  fifty  years. 

So  from  the  beginning  Vassar  has  confronted  the 
whole  problem  of  woman's  life,  in  itself  and  as  a 
social  force.  At  a  college  celebration  a  while  since, 
one  of  our  educational  leaders  declared, ''Twenty- 
five  years  ago  the  question  was,  'What  can  the 
woman's  college  do  for  women? '  Now  it  is, '  What 
can  the  woman's  college  do  for  the  community?  '  " 
I  must  take  exception  to  this  so  far  as  Vassar  is  con- 
cerned. The  earliest  literature  of  the  college  abounds 
in  purpose  toward  society,  not  womankind  alone. 
To-day,  indeed,  the  social  emphasis  is  about  all  one 
hears,  and  we  forget  that  essential  to  it  is  a  strong, 
well-developed  individuality.  But  constituted  as  we 
are,  we  cannot  wholly  destroy  either  individual  or 
social  emphasis.  A  few  years  ago,  for  example,  the 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        45 

American  college  world  discovered  that  citizenship 
was  the  fit  aim  of  a  college  training,  but  no  modern 
writer  has  said  that  more  forcefully  than  Aristotle. 
Twenty-five  years  ago,  on  such  an  occasion  as  this, 
the  president  of  Vassar  said  that  the  aim  of  this  col- 
lege was  *  *  the  broadening  and  lifting  of  the  life  of 
womankind,  and  thereby  of  the  entire  race."  Wo- 
manhood for  school,  sick-room,  social  circle,  church, 
home,  journalism,  business,  all  were  in  view,  he 
declared,  because  from  the  beginning  the  ideal  of 
Vassar  was  to  make  of  a  Vassar  student  a  thorough, 
well-trained,  forceful  woman,  who  should  use  her- 
self and  all  she  had  gained  for  the  service  of  the 
world.  Perhaps  the  preaching  of  that  so  earnestly  in 
all  the  earliest  years  gave  those  first  Vassar  women 
the  reputation  that  followed  them  everywhere, — 
that  they  were  wise  and  efficient  and  knew  how  to 
grasp  and  handle  the  problems  of  life.  That  was, 
and  is,  the  best  evidence  that  can  be  given  that 
the  old-fashioned  college  education — liberal,  large- 
visioned — is  a  great  preparation  for  life's  responsi- 
bilities, as  it  assuredly  is  an  open  sesame  of  abiding 
joy  and  spiritual  fullness. 

Happily  the  days  of  1865  have  given  way  to  a  far 
better  time.  To-day  Vassar  is  no  problem.  Rather, 
she  stands  here,  grown  beyond  the  imagination  of 
her  Founder,  and  welcomes  to  her  anniversary  not 


46       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

only  her  younger  sisters  and  her  forebears,  gra- 
ciously celebrating  with  her  this  day  of  her  glory 
and  of  theirs,  but  also  from  all  over  the  land  uni- 
versities and  colleges  that  regarded  her  coming  with 
questions  many  and  small  faith,  but  which  to-day 
are  one  in  their  rejoicing  in  her  contributions  to  the 
common  work  of  all,  for  our  nation,  for  our  com- 
mon humanity,  and  for  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


Spacious  Days  at  Vassar 

BY  MARY  AUGUSTA  JORDAN,  Class  of '76 
Professor  of  English  in  Smith  College 

IT  is  logically  hazardous  to  attach  a  term  of  gen- 
eral import  to  a  limited  period  of  time.  Yet  the 
making  of  mere  record  into  useful  history  requires 
it.  Without  it,  local  significance  would  be  baseless. 
Village  Catos  and  their  little  senates,  the  mute  in- 
glorious Miltons,  the  great  kings  before  Agamem- 
non, the  floods  since  the  one  of  controversial  Noah, 
the  human  torpedoes  before  Bernard  Shaw,  the  spa- 
cious times  of  great  Elizabeth,  with  attention  to  the 
agate  on  the  finger  of  an  alderman,  before  the  Jap- 
anese revelation  of  infinite  riches  in  a  little  room  of 
adjustable  paper  sides,  and  a  single  centre  of  interest 
in  a  fortnight's  worth  of  flower  arrangement  in  one 
priceless  porcelain,  encourage  the  analysis  of  the 
fifty  years  of  Vassar  history  into  periods  of  discrim- 
inated character.  Spaciousness,  with  its  exclusions 
and  its  stimulus,  its  dangers  of  emptiness  and 
of  vagueness,  is  the  characteristic  of  Vassar  from 
1870  to  1880.  After  1880,  the  years  fell  into  the 
background  of  a  crowded  series. 

For  Vassar  College  was  founded  not  only  as  an 
expression  of  social  justice,  but  as  an  installment 
of  the  ever  recurring  criticism  of  education,  taking 


48       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

definite  form  in  the  favoring  conditions  of  time  and 
place.  It  required  a  generation  of  college  administra- 
tion to  transform  the  passionate  triumph  of  women 
securing  a  long-contested  privilege  into  a  serene  ac- 
ceptance of  spiritual  discipline.  There  were  noble 
and  ardent  students  in  the  earliest  days  of  Vassar 
who  urged  their  claim  to  its  diploma  as  a  seal  of  their 
equality  with  those  who  were  conventionally  rated 
as  competent.  There  were  others  who  viewed  the 
process  of  the  new  education  as  an  entertaining,  if 
expensive,  lull  before  the  serious  business  of  life ; 
and  a  course  of  study  had  to  be  made  which  would 
readjust  some  of  these  misconceived  ambitions,  and 
would  put  before  the  ordinary  woman  the  assur- 
ance of  serenity  in  an  every-day  life.  The  novelty  of 
the  details  of  the  entertainment  added  greatly  to  its 
appeal  and  contributed  to  a  highly  specialized  type 
of  excitement.  Going  to  college  was  a  thing  quite 
by  itself,  an  experience  to  be  reckoned  with  —  some- 
thing like  Platonic  love,  or  getting  religion.  These 
factors,  important  or  negligible  as  they  may  now 
appear,  did  not  make  for  either  clearness  or  simpli- 
city in  the  conditions  facing  the  men  and  women 
who  were  shaping  the  college  policy.  The  student 
of  Vassar  history  finds  in  those  plans  of  Dr.  Jewett 
that  have  never  been  embodied  in  any  actual  course 
of  study  offered  to  the  undergraduates,  some  strik- 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        49 

ing  anticipations  of  the  most  advanced  reforms  ad- 
vocated by  the  critics  of  the  colleges  of  to-day.  But, 
obviously,  the  first  duty  of  the  pioneer  institution 
was  to  live  and  to  grow,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  give  temporary  satisfaction  to  the  irrational  and 
immature  critics  who  made  up  its  public. 

It  was,  therefore,  hardly  before  the  seventies  that 
this  experiment  could  be  tried.  The  result  was  com- 
promise, natural,  inevitable  in  itself,  but  not  nat- 
ural or  inevitable  in  its  results.  The  nervous  tension 
of  the  earliest  Vassar  was  undoubtedly  too  high.  Its 
extremes  of  consecration  and  irresponsibility  were 
both  abnormal.  By  1870  the  wise  compromise  had 
done  its  costly  work.  Vassar  did  not  stand,  even  in 
the  funny  papers,  any  longer  for  prigs,  freaks,  so- 
cial rebels,  or  eloquent  and  earnest  fanatics.  What 
did  it  stand  for  ?  Freedom  from  any  obligation  upon 
the  students  to  concern  themselves  with  that  ques- 
tion was  one  of  the  factors  of  the  spaciousness  that 
prevailed  for  ten  years. 

The  influences  which  led  a  young  woman  to  pro- 
long her  schooling,  her  study,  or  her  psychical  elab- 
oration were  many  and  interesting  at  just  this  time. 
It  is  hardly  possible  to  understand  now,  nor  would  it 
have  been  easy  to  exaggerate  then,  the  significance 
of  her  position  as  a  child  of  the  generation  after  the 
Civil  W^ar.  The  close  of  the  great  conflict  had  made 


50       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

possible  the  opening  of  vistas  of  alluring  activity, 
stretching  out  before  the  expectation  of  young  crea- 
tures unquestioning  in  their  faith  that  "time's 
whiter  series"  began  when  the  considerate  judg- 
ment of  mankind  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Al- 
mighty God  could  be  seriously  depended  upon  as 
co-operating  forces.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  typ- 
ical student  of  this  period  came  to  Vassar  equipped 
with  certain  inspiring  and  tonic  faiths.  She  really 
believed  that  some  things  had  been  finally  entered  on 
the  world's  great  balance  sheet, — the  value  of  raw 
soul-stuff,  for  instance, — and  that  in  spiritual  geo- 
graphy some  boundaries  had  been  established,  —  as 
the  one  between  vital  and  mechanical  efficiency. 
Even  in  1870  the  declaration  of  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian War  and  of  the  Infallibility  of  the  Pope  only 
stirred  her  imagination  to  a  keener  sense  of  gratitude 
for  the  providentially  favored  nation  clause  under 
which  she  was  living.  Such  untoward  happenings 
as  a  European  war  between  civilized  peoples  were 
only  echoes  of  the  ancient  error  that  delayed  some 
men  in  their  progress  to  full  enlightenment. 

It  is  as  hard  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  such 
a  young  person  now,  as  it  was  for  her  to  believe  in 
the  existence  of  real  obstacles  to  the  acceptance  by 
the  world  of  the  ideas  she  found  so  salutary.  She 
was  quite  accustomed  to  call  strife,  ambition,  and 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         51 

greed,  'illusions."  Characters  known,  briefly,  as 
"worldlings' '  were  indeed  admitted  to  be  often  awk- 
wardly eminent  and  temporarily  influential,  but  they 
were  so  clearly  victims  of  desperate  mistake  that  if 
they  could  not  be  reformed,  they  might  be  ignored. 
By  similar  rating,  wealth  and  luxury  were  quite  ob- 
viously accidents,  of  no  real  significance  except  in 
their  abuse.  As  for  family  pride  and  worldly  fame, 
she  noted  that  the  great  individuals  who  had  served 
the  republic  had  converted  the  family  name,  with 
discouraging  rapidity,  into  a  monopoly,  after  the 
manner  of  the  flesh,  and  into  a  world  inheritance, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  spirit.  The  Social  Four  Hun- 
dred had  not  then  emerged  from  the  dangerous 
classes,  and  Flora  McFlimsey  was  thought  to  be  an 
embodiment  of  a  vice  that  needed  only  to  be  seen. 
The  literary  preferences  of  the  time  will  illustrate 
this  assurance  of  temper.  When  everybody  believed 
without  question  that  ' '  all  service  ranks  alike  with 
God,"  Robert  Browning's  poetry  was  lightly  neg- 
lected for  his  wife's,  and  Mr.  William  Dean  How- 
ells's  estimate  of  "Hannah  Binding  Shoes"  was 
quite  generally  anticipated.  In  her  personal  relations, 
too,  this  undergraduate  was  able  to  make  extensive 
clearances.  Temperament  had  not  then  been  ex- 
ploited as  a  charm  or  a  virtue,  but  it  had  made  a  place 
for  itself  as  a  fascination.  "Elective  Affinities," 


52       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

''Counterparts,"  she  dealt  with  as  Adam  did  with 
the  beasts  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  She  named  these 
exotic,  hot-bed,  foreign.  She  paused  a  Httle  ruefully 
over  Miss  Alcott's  ''Moods,"  but  looked  at  in  the 
light  of  the  principles  of  human  brotherhood  and  of 
ultimate  social  equality,  these  preferential  treatments 
were  seen  for  the  assertions  of  privilege  they  really 
were.  No  less  than  violence  and  brute  force,  these 
things  warred  against  the  spirit,  while  the  immediate 
future  held  visions  of  the  victories  of  peace  with  its 
"strangely  active  arts  and  restless  motions."  Even 
the  indeterminate  present  took  on  significance  from 
the  promise  of  the  future  and  widened  out  into  vir- 
tuous achievement  by  its  good  intentions.  Then 
Henry  James  had  not  changed  his  published  scru- 
tiny of  our  national  resources  in  character  for  his 
trans- Atlantic  trade  in  shredded  personality. 

Thus  energy  was  released  in  all  directions  by 
the  simple  acceptance  of  faith  in  progress.  It  was  to 
come  in  the  form  of  physical,  moral,  and  intellect- 
ual enlightenment  rather  than  as  the  attainment  of 
specific  results  or  as  the  accumulation  of  material 
goods.  It  was  easy  to  see  hope  for  the  whole  groan- 
ing and  travailing  creation,  when  once  the  truth 
had  been  grasped  that  the  care  of  the  aged  and  of 
the  young  children  was  a  luxurious  by-product  of 
exuberant  life  and  not  the  burden  it  often  seemed. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         53 

So  simple  did  this  make  human  existence,  that  the 
average  citizen  could  keep  a  diary  without  fear  of 
discovering  in  himself  a  multiple  or  fractional  per- 
sonality, still  less  of  making  up  a  record  for  a  mere 
occurrence  or  human  blunder. 

Life  and  living  being  in  themselves  satisfactory 
activities,  diversion  and  amusement  had  little  inde- 
pendent value.  They  seemed  to  be  expressions  of 
some  error  or  lack.  Straws  and  rattles  were  for  chil- 
dren, heavy  or  empty  hours  for  the  sick  in  body  or 
in  mind.  The  play-impulse  was  generally  left  to  take 
care  of  itself,  or  transformed  into  creative  imagi- 
nation. The  past  and  the  distant  did  not  seem  bet- 
ter for  being  far,  because  the  simplest  and  slowest 
of  mortals  was  nevertheless  moving  among  worlds 
unrealized  where  every  step  was  adventurous.  Just 
beyond  every  cross-roads  of  decision  or  mile-stone 
of  action,  there  seemed  to  lurk  some  new,  infinitely 
valuable  discovery  which  would  change  the  old  pro- 
portions and  substitute  new  currencies.  A  young 
generation  felt  a  strange  call  from  the  future  and  so 
turned  a  perfectly  courteous  back  upon  the  past  with 
its  failures ;  and  with  a  resolute  morning  face  fronted 
the  new  order  of  things  where  everybody  should 
have  a  fair  chance,  where  it  should  never  be  too  late 
to  make  a  fresh  start,  and  where  friendship  should 
be  the  leading  business  of  individuals  and  of  nations. 


54       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

To  this  end,  serious  attention  was  given  to  the  work- 
ing up  of  humanity  in  the  raw  into  the  best  possi- 
ble product.  ELducation  was  never  before  so  generally 
a  matter  of  course.  But  the  process  was  not  so  well 
defined  as  the  result  desired  was  clear. 

At  Vassar,  for  instance,  the  examiners  were  often 
confronted  by  candidates  who  had  had  no  corre- 
spondence with  the  office,  who  had  not  read  the  cat- 
alogue carefully,  and  who  were  not  in  any  definite 
way  *' prepared."  They  nevertheless  were  hard  to 
convince  that  the  desire  for  college  advantages  should 
not  be  gratified,  or  that  certain  attainments  of  theirs 
should  not  be  temporarily  accepted  in  place  of  the 
fixed  requirements.  There  were  curious  instances  of 
candidates  who  could  not  pass  examinations  who 
felt  that  their  willingness  to  learn  ought  to  count 
for  something,  and  who  viewed  the  examiner  as  a 
friend  to  be  profited  by  and  not  as  a  difficulty  in- 
carnate to  be  overcome.  The  somewhat  languid  pace 
at  which  registration  and  other  mechanical  opera- 
tions connected  with  entering  college  in  those  days 
went  on  was  made  not  only  tolerable  but  enjoyable 
by  the  vivid  sense  of  social  experience  that  accom- 
panied it.  In  those  days  hardly  anything  was  less 
like  a  factory  than  a  college  was,  although  even  fac- 
tories were  not  the  standardized  machines  they  now 
are.  Variety  in  men  and  women  was  a  mark  of  an 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         55 

interesting  community.  But  symmetry  did  not  pre- 
vail in  the  characters  of  the  teachers,  nor  was  logic 
aimed  at  in  the  conduct  of  the  departments  of  in- 
struction. Unexpected  improvement  in  the  student 
was  everywhere  preferred  to  orderly  conduct  of  the 
intellectual  process.  And  such  sudden  change  was 
almost  as  much  coveted  by  teachers  and  depended 
upon  as  was  conversion  in  the  old  view  of  religious 
experience.  It  secured  a  wide  range  for  effort  and  ex- 
pectation. Almost  as  if  in  response  to  this  attitude 
of  their  teachers,  not  unfairly  comparable,  perhaps, 
to  a  conference  of  powers  where  all  were  sovereign, 
but  some  great  and  others  small,  the  students  of 
that  time  had  no  inclination  to  legalize  their  rela- 
tions within  the  college,  nor  was  legality  thought 
to  be  worth  emphasis  for  its  own  sake.  Whittier, 
Thoreau,  Lowell,  Robert  E.  Lee,  and  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  raised  issues  that  had  left  one  genera- 
tion antiseptic  to  the  legislation  virus.  So  Vassar 
students  went  serenely  forward  meditating  gain- 
fully upon  law,  but  stiffly  resenting  the  multiplica- 
tion of  statutes  in  education  or  in  social  relations. 
Of  course  they  were  also  free  from  the  burdens 
and  responsibilities  involved  in  the  student  activi- 
ties, for  the  most  part,  at  that  time,  uncreated  and 
undreamed  of. 

What  did  these  students  do,  then,  with  their 


56       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

energy  and  their  time,  so  imperfectly  and  inade- 
quately filled  by  college  work?  The  answer  is  a 
simple  one.  They  lived  with  the  faculty  and  shared 
their  wider  outlook  and  brooded  healthfully  on  things 
to  come.  The  typical  graduate  of  the  seventies  in- 
creased instead  of  depleting  her  central  energy  dur- 
ing the  four  college  years.  For  this  result,  she  owed 
much  to  the  temper  of  the  men  and  women  who 
made  up  the  college  government.  They  presented, 
to  the  undergraduate  eyes,  something  of  the  ideals 
of  cultivated  individuality  described  by  Emerson  as 
a  circle  of  godlike  men  and  women,  embodying 
the  social  friendship  resulting  from  the  pursuit  of 
lofty  and  shared  aims.  The  conception  of  teachers 
as  whetstones  for  the  students'  minds,  or  as  high- 
grade  coaches  to  put  intellectual  athletes  on  their 
way,  or  as  cosmically  remote  forces  in  scholarship 
to  be  utilized  for  service  by  cautious  insulation  in 
measured  volts,  was  not  then  at  all  generally  ac- 
cepted by  students  or  by  teachers.  The  teachers 
were  still  the  best  part  of  the  college ;  they  held  their 
own  fairly  well  with  libraries,  art  collections,  the 
countryside,  and  even  student  influence.  The  fac- 
ulty virtues  were  thought  to  be  epidemic.  But  the 
atmosphere  had  other  factors  of  influence. 

The  presence  of  the  preparatories,  as  they  were 
called, — that  is,  students  not  yet  of  full  college  grade, 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        57 

sharing  in  the  college  equipment,  and  often  being 
taught  by  the  same  teachers,  sometimes  in  the  same 
audience  with  the  regularly  classified  collegians, — 
was  made  to  appear  highly  creditable,  contributory 
to  a  desirable  variety.  It  was  really  a  contribution  to 
the  problem  now  engaging  attention  under  the  name 
of  the  essential  unity  of  the  educational  process.  The 
impression  it  made  upon  the  college  public  was 
much  simpler  than  this  designation  implies, — it  was 
really,  with  all  the  administrative  and  theoretical 
difficulties  which  ultimately  occasioned  its  abolition, 
very  vital,  organic,  and  human.  It  effectually  pre- 
vented one  fault  now  alleged  against  the  modern 
college,  that  the  recipients  of  its  training  all  wish 
to  be  doing  the  same  things  and  thinking  the  same 
thoughts.  The  preparatories  reversed  the  Greek 
formula  and  supplied  difference  in  unity. 

Naturally  there  was  a  marked  absence  of  rigid- 
ity in  administrative  order.  Vassar  illustrated  easily 
the  best  aspects  of  what  may  be  called  academic 
quanti valence.  Teaching  Greek  did  not  unfit  an  offi- 
cer for  usefulness  in  the  library,  and  the  instructor 
in  gymnastics  might  teach  German.  The  water- 
tight compartment  treatment  of  learning,  or  even  of 
scholarship,  would  not  have  seemed  dignified  to  the 
aspirant  for  culture  in  those  days.  So  it  was  not  sur- 
prising that  small  corner-rooms  occupied  by  mem- 


58        VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

bers  of  the  clerical  staff,  or  of  the  music  department, 
or  of  the  messenger  system  were  centres  of  perfectly 
recognized  culture  and  influence.  Furthermore,  the 
disappearance  of  a  department  from  the  catalogue 
list  did  not  carry  with  it  censure,  or  a  verdict  of  its 
negligibility,  any  more  than  the  failure  of  a  comet 
to  meet  expectant  watching  argued  its  astronomic 
incompetence.  The  course  of  study  was  essentially 
a  co-operative  affair  between  each  student  and  the 
faculty.  It  was,  therefore,  not  half  so  shameful  to 
fail  of  graduation  with  a  particular  class  as  it  was 
to  force  the  bestowal  of  the  college  diploma  upon  a 
"meagre  senior."  The  lists  in  the  catalogue  of  this 
general  period  read  a  little  like  Punch's  description 
of  the  railroad  trains  in  Bradshaw. 

Most  of  the  work  was  conducted  intensively. 
Completeness  was  looked  upon  as  preposterous,  not 
so  much  because  of  the  shortness  of  the  time  at  the 
disposal  of  the  student,  as  because  of  the  waste  of 
time  and  energy  that  would  inevitably  result.  There 
was  a  surprising  amount  of  emulation  between  ex- 
perts, but  a  surprising  lack  of  competition  between 
officers .  Students  were  urged  from  one  department 
into  others,  sometimes  literally  pushed  out  from  an 
early,  and,  in  the  line  of  least  resistance,  favorite,  in 
order  to  prevent  the  repetition  of  process  technically 
familiar.  Men  were  of  the  opinion  of  Mahbub  Ali, 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        59 

that  when  the  pony  is  made — finished,  mouthed, 
and  paced  (in  a  line  of  work),  from  then  on,  day  by 
day,  he  will  lose  his  manners  if  he  is  kept  at  his 
tricks.  In  the  same  connection,  possibly,  it  had  come 
about  that  the  course  of  study  was  unabashedly 
regardless  of  outward  show  of  logic,  balance,  and 
symmetry. 

It  was  really  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  spa- 
cious days  when  a  Hteral-tempered  young  faculty 
person  proclaimed  as  ground  for  needed  reform  the 
fact  that  the  hours  of  the  working  day  would  not 
cover  the  demands  of  the  time-table.  To  her  in  brief 
time  was  added  one  who  urged  that  it  was  illogical 
to  require  work  that  did  not  count  in  definite  hours 
and  in  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  marks 
toward  the  earning  of  the  Bachelor's  degree.  She 
held  that  bodily  presence  and  promptness  ought  also 
to  have  definite  recognition,  that  the  student  might 
know  the  exact  total  of  her  risks  in  absence  and 
inaccuracy.  But  in  the  spacious,  free,  and  already 
changing  seventies  students  had  been  so  long  famil- 
iar with  human  paradox  that  they  would  probably 
have  felt  lonely  without  the  factor  of  practical  im- 
possibility. 

As  they  come  up  for  review,  these  things  that  did 
not  count,  and  that  were  soon  squeezed  out  of  ex- 
istence, and  out  of  the  memory  of  most,  and  out 


60       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

of  the  respectful  consideration  of  all  Hohenzollern- 
minded  critics, — what  were  they  in  detail?  Lectures 
on  painting  and  sculpture,  music  and  physical  train- 
ing, public  and  private  manners,  personal  economy 
and  dress.  There  was  practice  in  writing,  public 
speaking,  indoor  gymnastics,  outdoor  exercise,  cho- 
rus singing,  private  meditation,  and  Bible  study.  In 
all  this,  the  material  view  of  life  was  constantly 
opposed. 

Fortunately  for  this  aim,  interior  decoration  in  the 
early  part  of  this  period  was  still  where  it  had  been 
left  for  one  part  of  the  country  by  Sherman's  march 
to  the  sea,  and  for  the  rest  by  the  war  income  tax. 
It  was  the  Centennial  Exposition  in  1876  that  began 
the  holding  up  to  the  country  of  the  international 
looking-glass  and  revealed  our  ugliness  and  left  us 
with  the  problem  of  whether  it  was  more  than  skin 
deep.  Meantime  the  student  Hfe  of  the  period  moved 
freely  among  objects  that  in  their  barest  poverty  and 
utter  nakedness  marked  the  way  to  their  spiritual 
opposites.  Heavy  tables  were  good  to  write  on,  Wil- 
liam Morris  and  William  Allen  Butler  agreed.  Louis 
Quinze  chairs  and  desks  certainly  would  not  have 
supported  imagination.  There  were  simplifications 
somewhat  analogous  to  curtainless  windows  and  red 
and  green  ingrain  carpeted  floors  and  dispropor- 
tionately high  walls,  in  the  curriculum.  Greek  was 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        61 

not  insisted  upon,  and  history  was  allowed  to  take 
its  place  in  connection  with  every  subject  taught. 
The  hope  seemed  to  be  that  the  whole  course  of  study 
would  conspire  to  make  students  live  Greek,  and 
that  they  would  then  naturally  avail  themselves  of 
the  forms  of  self-expression  the  language  and  liter- 
ature provided.  The  order  of  supply  and  demand 
described  by  Aristotle  himself  was  more  or  less  con- 
fidently trusted  to  in  both  instances, — the  ends  that 
are  beyond  the  activities  are  naturally  superior  to 
the  activities. 

This  was  further  exemplified  by  the  variety  of  in- 
terests and  relations  which  encompassed  the  class- 
room. Wealth  and  variety  of  physical  life  were  en- 
dowed with  dignity  and  almost  religious  urgency. 
There  was  nothing  incongruous  or  undignified  in 
the  exposition  of  the  Ferris  waist  or  of  union  under- 
garments to  the  corporate  college  intelligence  at 
after-chapel  conferences.  The  same  sort  of  personal 
responsibility  was  aroused  by  the  president's  presen- 
tation of  the  categorical  imperative  in  the  admired 
series  of  metaphysical  sermons  on  Sunday  morn- 
ings. The  series  was  primarily  addressed  to  the  sen- 
iors, but  the  first-preparatory  had  a  chance  to  hear 
it  five  times  before  it  came  her  turn  to  listen  with 
appropriating  ears.  The  faculty  afforded  a  varied 
commentary  on  the  development  of  the  ideas  tenta- 


62       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

lively  undertaken  by  the  students.  Exercise  in  the 
open  air  had  definite  rewards  beyond  physical  recu- 
peration when  Dr.  Hinkel  and  his  dog  Sailor  were 
encountered.  Walking  became  an  effort  at  artistic 
imitation,  fairly  successful,  when  Dr.  Alida  Avery's 
searching  scrutiny  found  nothing  amiss  in  carriage 
or  speed. 

From  students  to  faculty,  there  was  a  steadily 
increasing  and  perhaps  increasingly  unconscious 
appeal.  The  academic  exosmose  and  endosmose 
were  quite  perfect.  Comparatively  few  students  ever 
knew  Miss  Mitchell  in  the  class-room,  but  scores 
knew  her  in  the  corridor,  and  few  escaped  her  influ- 
ence. Her  infrequent  illnesses  were  eclipses  like  those 
she  taught  the  college  to  note,  except  that  the  college 
needed  no  teaching  when  she  was  obscured.  She 
shed  energy  and  intellectual  exhilaration  from  her 
waving  curls  and  following  skirts.  Her  friends,  who 
felt  that  they  had  sent  her  to  Vassar  at  great  cost 
to  themselves  and  their  various  radical  interests, 
came  frequently  to  see  how  the  big  investment  and 
its  risks  prospered.  Whatever  their  attitude  or  their 
judgment  on  the  main  question.  Miss  Mitchell 
rarely  failed  to  use  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  under- 
graduates. She  taught  social  bearing  by  the  nat- 
ural method  at  receptions,  when  no  urging  induced 
her  guests  to  lecture  or  publicly  express  their  inter- 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        63 

ests  or  their  warning  and  reproof  for  the  hard  hearts 
of  a  class  of  petted  children,  as  they  often  took  the 
students  to  be,  despite  Miss  Mitchell's  hopeful  view 
of  them.  They  were  a  sort  of  Theban  band  in  their 
devotion  to  causes,  but  otherwise  often  unrelated. 
The  halls  were  veritable  highways  along  which  they 
passed,  and  in  which  careless  irresponsibility  so- 
bered into  sudden  quiet  on  meeting  them.  They 
were  Miss  Elizabeth  Eastman,  Miss  Anthony,  Mrs. 
JuHa  Ward  Howe,  Lucy  Stone,  Louisa  Alcott,  Mrs. 
Livermore,  Mrs.  Stanton,  and  Emily  Faithful,  and 
they  opened  the  whitewashed  halls  and  rumbling 
fire-walls  into  long  vistas  of  suggestion  and  of  con- 
troversy. 

Quite  diiFerent  was  the  influence  of  Professor 
Farrar,  who  seemed  the  impersonation  of  abstrac- 
tion. His  lectures  in  freshman  mathematics  made 
the  general  subject  live  for  the  first  time  to  many 
of  his  hearers.  Thales  and  Pythagoras  were  shown 
to  be  likewise  treaders  of  the  toilsome  way  even  as 
the  men  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  difference 
this  made  in  the  required  work  amounted  to  revolu- 
tion. Perhaps  no  theme  possessed  less  vitahty  than 
geology,  perhaps  none  seemed  more  ornamental 
than  botany,  none  less  urgent  than  zoology;  but  Pro- 
fessor Orton  changed  all  that  for  any  student  who 
talked  with  him  for  ten  minutes.  Such  a  one  came 


64       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

probably  on  the  Philistine  errand  of  getting  credit 
on  her  entrance  card  for  some  bits  of  study  that  she 
had  brought  from  school.  To  her  growing  conster- 
nation, she  was  received  as  if  she  were  a  fellow  sci- 
entist and  a  lover  of  the  undiscovered,  addressed  as 
if  she  were  in  a  position  to  compare  past  achieve- 
ment with  future  eifort.  In  the  few  minutes,  she  found 
her  measure  accurately  taken,  her  self-estimate 
changed  from  something  purely  formal  to  something 
very  real  and  like  the  Day  of  Judgment.  For  such 
a  student,  part  of  Vassar  is  in  truth  near  Bull's  Head 
in  Dutchess  County,  New  York,  but  part  of  it  is  a 
lonely,  solitary,  greatly  honored  grave  on  an  island 
in  Lake  Titicaca. 

Similarly,  any  student  who  considered  art  a  light 
occupation  for  the  frivolous  could  never  connect  that 
impression  with  Professor  Henry  Van  Ingen.  He 
often  described  himself  as  no  longer  an  artist,  but  a 
teacher  of  drawing  and  painting,  a  Dutchman  and 
not  a  German .  These  distinctions  became  deeply  sig- 
nificant when  one  knew  that  he  preferred  the  lim- 
itations he  acknowledged  so  frankly  to  the  role  of 
court  painter  to  the  Queen  of  Holland, — a  nice  lady, 
as  he  genially  admitted,  but  grimly  after  all,  a  queen. 
He  spoke  in  the  hearing  of  at  least  one  young  woman 
who  had  never  dreamed  that  the  feeling  for  kings 
and  queens  could  take  on  any  but  verbal  warmth. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        65 

The  borders  of  her  world  began  to  enlarge,  and  they 
are  still  widening  out  to  meet  the  painful  facts. 

There  were,  of  course,  many  less  striking  ex- 
amples of  this  expansion  of  the  students'  world  by 
personal  contact.  Most  of  the  teachers  were  remark- 
able for  the  many  talents  they  kept  at  interest.  There 
were  very  few  who  could  do  only  one  thing  well, 
and  many  who  lived  a  most  enterprising  intellectual 
life,  to  which  they  gladly  admitted  students  and  gen- 
erously made  them  free  of  results  painfully  gained. 
No  surprise  was  ever  expressed  at  the  tasks  or  at- 
tainments of  the  students.  They  also  were  citizens 
in  the  Republic  of  Letters.  There  was  often  an  air 
of  quiet  expectancy  of  some  interesting  accomplish- 
ment from  particular  students  on  the  part  of  the  most 
sympathetic  of  the  teachers.  They  followed  with 
almost  reportorial  zeal  the  performance  of  seniors 
in  the  public  presentation  of  the  required  thesis,  as 
long  as  the  custom  lasted. 

The  guests  of  the  college  in  these  years  made 
students  feel,  each  as  if  she  were  entertaining  the 
lords  of  life,  as  they  passed  and  repassed,  intent  upon 
their  own  purposes.  George  William  Curtis  imparted 
for  the  time  being  a  fine  envy  of  his  elegant  culture, 
but  this  did  not  prevent  the  students  from  court- 
ing the  magic  of  John  B.  Gough.  Mr.  William  Allen 
Butler,  said  to  be  the  last  of  the  New  York  lawyers 


66       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

who  knew  enough  to  be  his  own  office-boy,  and  Dr. 
Benjamin  Lossing  were  among  the  trustees  who 
helped  students  to  think  of  corporations  as  having 
souls  as  well  as  purses.  Dr.  Magoon  interested  him- 
self in  providing  art  history  and  art  collections  and 
a  proper  basis  for  criticism,  as  being  really  among 
the  things  on  which  men  live  instead  of  mere  lux- 
uries and  diversions.  Among  the  neighbors  who 
used  to  drop  in  at  Vassar — to  see  the  grown-ups, 
mainly,  to  be  sure,  but  with  kindly  helpful  greet- 
ings for  the  rising  generation  and  with  sometimes 
attentive  scrutiny  of  individuals — were  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott,  our  friend  John  Burroughs,  Colonel  T.  W. 
Higginson,  with  his  faith  in '  'Alice  in  Wonderland ' ' 
as  a  text-book  of  wit  and  wisdom  even  as  in  later 
years,  perhaps;  and  E.  P.  Roe,  Mr.  Mitchell,  Mr. 
Swan,  and  Mr.  Frederick  Thompson,  whose  bodily 
presence  would  be  more  sorely  missed  if  they  had  not 
built  themselves  into  the  college. 

The  Sunday  problem  did  not  press  theoretically 
or  practically  very  closely  upon  the  undergraduate, 
because  the  European  Sunday  had  not  then  landed 
at  Castle  Garden.  The  Vassar  Sunday  of  the  sev- 
enties was  reasonably  free  from  complicating  issues. 
Bishop  Huntington,  Phillips  Brooks,  Bishop  Coxe, 
Dr.  Abbott,  the  president  of  the  college,  were  strong 
siding  champions  of  the  spirit.  But  from  time  to 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         67 

time  a  single  day  stood  out  with  all  the  spiritual  in- 
tensity later  familiar  in  Walter  Pater's  description  of 
White  Nights.  Such  spiritual  magic  was  wrought 
on  a  dull  morning  by  a  certain  sermon  that  each  one 
of  the  student  hearers  thought  herself  alone  in  her 
appreciation  of,  until  at  the  conversational  clearing- 
house of  the  dinner  table  it  appeared  that  there  was 
a  petition  in  circulation  to  ask  for  another  sermon 
that  day.  The  president  of  Smith  College,  L.  Clark 
Seelye,  had  discovered  to  the  students  of  Vassar 
an  unsuspected  capacity  for  more  than  one  sermon 
on  Sunday.  To  be  sure  he  did  not  accede  to  their 
request,  but  in  his  fashion  of  declining,  he  deep- 
ened the  impression  he  had  already  made,  and  laid 
the  foundation  of  an  almost  romantic  attachment 
between  the  two  colleges  which  exists  to  this  day. 
In  the  logic  class,  the  next  morning,  his  few  ques- 
tions and  comments,  called  out  by  Dr.  Backus,  made 
amends  by  their  scholarly  urbanity  for  some  of  the 
hours  of  chilly  abstraction  that  the  lesson  on  the 
conversion  of  propositions  had  made  necessary. 

Mark  Hopkins,  in  a  series  of  lectures  to  the  sen- 
ior and  junior  classes,  made  it  possible  for  a  few 
faithful  girls  on  hard  benches  to  know  something 
of  the  fabled  opportunities  of  the  boy  who  shared  a 
log  with  the  great  teacher.  He  lectured  with  abso- 
lute frankness.  He  laid  open  his  mental  processes 


68       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

and  displayed  all  the  machinery  of  his  mind,  quite 
unashamed,  and  unabashed,  and  unartificial. 

Other  guests  of  the  college  came  from  over-seas, 
and  as  ocean  travel  was  not  the  rapid  transit  it  now 
is,  they  came  and  tarried,  instead  of  being  speeded 
on  their  way  by  automobiles.  A  ceremonious  visit 
from  Dom  Pedro,  of  Brazil,  changed  the  map  of 
South  America  from  a  plan  of  the  suburbs  of  the 
Amazon  to  a  chart  of  the  home-lot  of  a  very  kindly, 
cultivated,  and  able  gentleman  who  was  unfortu- 
nate enough  to  be  an  emperor  temporarily.  Charles 
Kingsley,  Edward  Freeman,  and  George  MacDon- 
ald  illustrated  in  different  ways  the  unstable  ner- 
vous equilibrium  of  genius  or  talent.  Their  appeal 
was  sweetly  persuasive,  or  brusquely  challenging, 
or  surprisingly  irritating,  but  their  assurance  of 
never  sinking  back  into  the  limbo  of  contemporary 
biography  was  complete  as  far  as  the  memory  of 
one  generation  of  Vassar  College  students  could 
last.  They  were  all,  in  the  phrase  of  the  day,  too  real 
for  words. 

The  Vassar  College  of  to-day  is  splendid.  The 
undergraduate  would  say  "simply  splendid."  But 
I  am  an  old  graduate,  and  I  must  make  a  distinc- 
tion. The  splendor  about  us  on  all  sides  is  not  sim- 
ple, but  complex.  It  is  a  fitting  task  for  Miss  Sem- 
ple  to  explain  in  terms  of  anthropo-geography  why 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        69 

from  geologic  eras  and  from  under  the  high  arching 
sky  over  the  Hudson  River,  Vassar  was  destined  to 
be  splendid.  Miss  Lathrop  will  tell  you  what  the 
best  of  all  educations  is  toward  which  these  complex 
destinies  are  driving.  I  have  tried  to  remind  you  of 
a  very  real  and  important  distinction.  Space  in  gen- 
eral is  distinguished  by  the  absence  of  things  and 
the  presence  of  forces.  When  things  themselves  are 
more  significant  by  reason  of  their  relation  to  force, 
place  or  time  becomes  spacious.  The  danger  in 
human  affairs  is  that  the  spacious  will  be  confused 
with  the  empty  and  the  idle;  that  force  will  be  ex- 
pressed in  confusion  or  machinery.  The  Vassar  of 
the  future  must  accept  the  task  of  solving  her  grow- 
ing problem  in  a  spirit  loyal  to  the  beginnings  made 
in  one  of  the  perfect  moments  of  our  republic  —  the 
years  we  call  * '  the  seventies. ' ' 


Geographical  Research 

As  a  Field  for  Women 

BY  ELLEN  CHURCHILL  SEMPLE,  Class  of '82 
Of  Louisville y  Kentucky 

MINE  own  people,  —  mine  in  the  common 
ideals  which  Vassar  has  bequeathed  to  her 
children;  mine  in  the  common  training  for  life,  no 
matter  what  its  tasks  may  have  proved  to  be ;  mine 
in  the  common  purposes  and  hopes  born  of  that  good 
heritage  and  training :  I  should  like  to  take  you  all 
into  my  arms,  but  unable  to  do  that,  I  want  to  take 
you  into  the  heart  of  my  work.  I  invite  you  to  green 
fields  and  pastures  new,  fields  as  broad  as  this  great 
continent,  stretching  on  across  river  and  plain  and 
mountain  out  to  the  wide  Pacific;  fields  stretching 
on  beyond  the  ocean  and  across  the  eastern  hemi- 
sphere. This  land  is  yours  for  the  taking.  Little  of 
it  has  been  pre-empted.  Here  you  may  stake  out 
your  claim  and  measure  it  by  the  square  league,  as 
the  pioneers  did  on  the  colonial  frontier  of  Argen- 
tine. Here  you  find  a  field  rich  and  fertile,  waiting 
for  a  labor  force  to  develop  it,  promising  an  abun- 
dant harvest  to  the  tiller. 

I  speak  with  enthusiasm  on  this  subject,  and  in 
doing  so,  I  am  reminded  of  a  retired  business  man 
in  my  home  state  of  Kentucky,  who  purchased  a 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         71 

large  landed  estate  in  the  Bluegrass  and  became  a 
farmer.  He  introduced  various  new  and  improved 
methods  of  cultivation,  the  latest  agricultural  imple- 
ments, and  a  careful  system  of  economy  to  prevent 
waste,  all  of  which  promised  large  returns.  After  a 
year  or  two  he  went  about  among  his  friends,  say- 
ing, ''I  am  making  thirty-three  per  cent, think  of 
it,  thirty- three  per  cent!  "  The  fame  of  this  won- 
derful farm  spread  abroad.  People  came  from  all  the 
country-side  to  see  it, — truck-gardeners  from  the 
river-bottoms  in  their  mud-bespattered  wagons, 
small  tobacco-planters  from  the  hills  in  their  rat- 
tling buggies,  and  gentlemen  farmers  from  Blue- 
grass  estates  in  their  imposing  motor  cars.  All  put 
the  same  question  to  their  host :  * '  You  say  you  are 
making  thirty -three  per  cent?"  '^Yes,  indeed," 
came  the  reply ;  ' '  three  per  cent  profit  and  thirty  per 
cent  pleasure." 

To  such  a  farm  I  invite  you  to-day.  Better  than 
a  meagre  three  per  cent  profit,  I  can  promise  you 
a  ten  or  even  fifteen  per  cent  royalty  on  such  books 
as  may  represent  your  harvest.  And  the  thirty  per 
cent  pleasure  is  sure  to  be  yours. 

There  are  several  reasons  for  recommending  geo- 
graphical research  as  a  field  of  work  for  women. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  an  uncrowded  field ;  nay,  it 
clamors  for  laborers.  A  few  years  ago — perhaps  I 


72       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

should  say  a  few  days  ago — when  women  began 
to  push  into  the  various  domains  of  men's  activi- 
ties, a  sense  of  crowding  went  through  the  world  of 
production,  like  that  which  disturbed  the  nations  of 
the  Old  World  about  thirty  years  ago,  when  Ger- 
many and  Italy  began  to  elbow  their  way  into  the 
colonial  field. 

For  women,  geography  maintains  "the  open 
door,"  especially  as  the  teaching  of  this  subject  in 
grade  schools,  high  schools,  and  colleges  is  making 
insistent  demands  for  more  and  better-trained  in- 
structors. To  investigators  it  offers  a  wide  choice  of 
themes  in  its  many  subdivisions.  The  field  of  phys- 
ical geography  or  physiography,  though  fairly  well 
worked,  has  still  many  neglected  corners.  There 
are  numerous  type  districts  in  all  parts  of  our  coun- 
try which  need  to  be  investigated,  scientifically  de- 
scribed, and  interpreted  in  terms  of  their  long  geo- 
graphical and  geological  history.  Economic  and  com- 
mercial geography,  though  well  developed,  are  by 
no  means  exhausted.  They  still  present  interesting 
problems  for  the  investigator.  Plant  geography,  or 
the  influence  of  geographic  conditions  upon  vegeta- 
ble life,  is  still  in  its  early  morn  with  the  dew  on  its 
flowers.  It  oflfers  an  almost  unlimited  field  of  entran- 
cing labor,  and  promises  to  the  subject  of  botany  a 
hitherto  unsuspected  development. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         73 

Finally,  there  is  the  field  of  anthropo-geography, 
or  the  influence  of  geographic  environment  upon 
human  development.  It  deals  with  the  geographic 
factors  which  have  helped  to  shape  history  in  all 
ages,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  among  all  races. 
This  is  the  phase  of  geography  to  which  I  have  es- 
pecially devoted  myself,  and  for  which  in  particular 
I  wish  to  elicit  your  sympathy  and  interest  to-day. 
The  subject  is  new  and  vast.  Moreover,  it  is  big 
with  possibilities.  I  should  like  to  convert  this  whole 
audience  into  a  seminar  for  anthropo-geography, 
and  I  would  promise  to  keep  you  all  busy  at  research 
for  the  rest  of  your  lives. 

This  subject  is  particularly  suited  to  women 
because  of  their  natural  endowment, — their  power 
of  observation,  their  capacity  for  detail  work,  their 
patient  perseverance  in  the  collection  of  material, 
their  intellectual  humility,  which  makes  for  cautious 
induction,  and  finally  their  imagination.  This  last 
qualification  I  would  emphasize;  because  modern 
education,  which  seems  to  be  a  big  mill  especially 
designed  for  crushing  the  imagination,  finds  a  more 
resistant  element  in  the  mind  of  woman,  probably 
due  to  her  strong  emotional  nature. 

Women  have  another  point  in  their  favor  in  the 
study  of  anthropo-geography ;  that  is  their  taste  and 
their  opportunity  for  travel,  which  is  a  valuable  aid 


74       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

in  general  preparation  and  specific  research  in  this 
field.  Now  women,  and  particularly  American  wo- 
men, are  ubiquitous  travelers  in  the  world  to-day, 
leaving  their  men  in  the  security  of  the  home  nest. 
If  they  are  idle  and  rich,  they  travel  to  take  on  the 
semblance  of  work.  If  they  are  poor  and  hard-work- 
ing, they  scrape  together  their  meagre  funds  for  a 
summer  of  rest  and  travel  in  Europe.  In  all  the  con- 
tinents I  have  met  them, — on  the  border  of  the  Gobi 
Desert,  starting  on  a  twelve  days'  caravan  journey 
across  the  drifting  sands  to  the  frozen  plains  of  Si- 
beria ;  at  the  foot  of  the  Himalayan  glaciers,  prepar- 
ing to  ascend  the  snow-capped  heights ;  or  tramp- 
ing alone  over  Alpine  passes,  as  the  best  way  to  see 
the  country.  There  are  few  countries  to-day  in  which 
they  cannot  safely  travel,  and  none  in  which  they 
do  not  wish  to  travel.  Moreover,  in  the  last  few 
decades  women  have  written  many  admirable  books 
about  the  lands  of  their  wanderings.  These  books 
might  be  more  numerous,  and  certainly  would  be 
more  valuable,  if  their  authors  had  been  trained 
geographers. 

The  scientific  equipment  which  is  necessary  for 
research  work  in  anthropo-geography  embraces  sub- 
jects which  women  students  for  the  most  part  natu- 
rally select  in  their  college  course.  These  are  geology, 
physiography,  economics,  sociology,  and  history, 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        75 

with  an  occasional  excursion  into  the  fields  of  an- 
thropology, biology,  and  statistics.  As  mere  prepa- 
ration, this  list  may  seem  a  large  contract;  but  as  the 
average  college  woman  comes  out  equipped  with  the 
majority  of  the  subjects  and  the  most  important,  the 
supplementary  ones  to  be  later  mastered  represent 
an  easy  task. 

The  method  of  research,  again,  is  well  suited  to 
feminine  tastes  and  the  feminine  order  of  mind.  It 
involves  careful  induction  from  a  broad  comparison 
of  data.  The  collection  of  the  data  leads  the  student 
into  wide  and  varied  fields  of  reading,  which  forever 
charm  by  their  novelty  and  by  the  lure  of  the  chase 
to  the  hunter.  Histories,  books  of  travel  and  explora- 
tion, descriptions  of  lands  and  peoples,  are  the  chief 
sources,  varied  occasionally  by  the  duller  material 
of  census  reports.  The  plan  of  procedure  is  to  com- 
pare typical  peoples  of  all  races  and  all  stages  of  cul- 
tural development,  living  under  similar  geographic 
conditions.  If  these  peoples  of  different  ethnic  stocks 
but  similar  environments  manifest  similar  or  related 
social,  economic,  or  historical  development,  then  it 
is  reasonable  to  infer  that  such  similarities  are  due 
to  environment  and  not  to  race.  Thus  the  race  fac- 
tor in  the  historical  problem  is  eliminated  by  wide 
comparison,  and  the  geographic  factor  can  be  esti- 
mated. 


76       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

For  instance,  if  the  influences  of  an  island  en- 
vironment be  the  subject  of  research,  we  investi- 
gate the  history  and  cultural  development  of  island 
peoples  over  the  whole  world,  whether  they  be  Ma- 
lays, Mongohans,  Papuans,  Polynesians,  American 
Indians,  or  the  various  branches  of  the  white  race ; 
whether  savage,  barbarous,  or  civilized;  whether 
ancient  or  modern ;  whether  they  dwell  in  an  island 
continent  like  Australia,  or  a  mere  fragment  of  land 
like  the  Isle  of  Man.  From  this  wide  comparison  of 
the  manifold  and  varied  slowly  emerge  the  common 
social  or  historical  traits,  due  to  the  common  factor 
of  insular  environment. 

Suppose  we  are  investigating  the  natural  transit 
regions  of  the  world.  These  are  small  open  districts, 
located  between  physical  barriers  of  mountain,  sea, 
or  desert,  and  therefore  offering  a  nature-made  pass- 
way  for  migration,  trade,  and  conquest.  Such  was 
the  location  of  the  Iroquois  country  in  the  low  Mo- 
hawk depression  between  the  Catskill  Mountains  on 
the  south  and  the  Adirondacks  on  the  north ;  of  the 
ancient  Philistine  plain  between  the  rugged  Judean 
highland  on  the  east  and  the  Mediterranean  on  the 
west ;  of  mediaeval  Austria  or  the  East  Mark  at  the 
Danube  gate  between  the  Little  Carpathians  on  the 
north  and  the  spurs  of  the  Alps  on  the  south ;  of 
the  long  Rhone  trough,  offering  a  valley  highway 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         77 

from  the  Mediterranean  northward  between  the 
western  Alps  and  the  rough  Cevennes  Plateau. 

If  we  compare  the  history  of  all  these  transit  dis- 
tricts, we  find  that  they  were  small  areas  of  corre- 
spondingly small  populations,  occupying  a  location 
that  was  at  once  dangerous  but  full  of  opportunity 
to  acquire  wealth,  owing  to  the  trade  which  passed 
through  each.  Recurrent  danger  came  from  the 
streams  of  migration  and  conquest  deflected  through 
these  natural  channels  of  movement.  Attack  was  in- 
vited by  the  abundant  opportunity  of  the  position. 
Hence  the  inhabitants  of  such  transit  regions  have 
developed  courage  and  military  power  out  of  pro- 
portion to  their  number.  They  have  developed  also 
a  talent  for  shrewd  diplomacy,  when  their  larger 
neighbors  courted  and  conciliated  them  instead  of 
attacking ;  and  thus  they  gained  a  protector  for  a 
time,  playing  off"  one  enemy  against  the  other.  But 
the  inherent  weakness  of  small  numbers  and  an 
exposed  location  has  always  made  desolating  con- 
quest their  national  lot,  in  whatever  continent  they 
were  found. 

Moreover,  the  history  of  one  such  transit  region, 
if  compared  in  its  successive  stages  of  civilization 
and  in  its  distinctive  periods,  will  show  an  almost 
monotonous  recurrence  of  the  same  big  historical 
events  and  the  same  type  of  national  character, 


78       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

though  the  ethnic  stock  may  have  changed.  The 
low  plain  of  Flanders  and  Brabant  forms  a  passway 
only  fifty  miles  wide  between  the  North  Sea  and  the 
rugged  Ardennes  Plateau,  which,  from  the  western 
Alps  to  the  heart  of  Belgium,  raises  a  natural  bar- 
rier between  the  Rhine  valley  and  the  smiling  plains 
of  France.  From  time  immemorial  this  Belgian  gate- 
way has  been  assailed  from  the  approaching  high- 
ways on  east  and  west.  Its  defenders  first  appear 
in  history  when  Julius  Caesar  made  his  campaign 
in  northern  Gaul  in  57  b.c.  He  defeated  them  in 
the  first  battle  of  the  Aisne,  and  won  another  costly 
victory  from  them  between  the  Sambre  River  and 
the  Scheldt ;  but  he  treated  the  conquered  with  the 
compassion  due  to  a  courageous  people,  and  in  his 
history  he  left  a  eulogy  on  their  heroism.  In  the  in- 
troduction to  his  '* Commentaries,"  he  enumerates 
the  three  divisions  of  Gauls,  and  then  adds:  ''But 
the  bravest  of  all  these  are  the  Belgians,  because 
they  fight  almost  daily  battles  with  the  Germans 
who  live  across  the  Rhine." 

History  has  moved  in  a  narrow  groove  across  this 
Belgian  plain.  Hordes  of  Teutonic  barbarians  swept 
in  from  the  east  during  the  early  Middle  Ages.  Dur- 
ing the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  the  in- 
vaders were  the  armies  of  expanding  France.  To-day 
the  plain  of  Flanders  and  Brabant  is  one  vast  battle- 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        79 

field.  The  Roman  eagle  is  superseded  by  the  Prus- 
sian eagle,  the  Roman  legion  by  the  German  army 
corps.  Only  the  compassion  of  the  Roman  general 
is  lacking.  And  the  larger  world  to-day,  with  a  pain- 
stung  conscience,  feeling  itself  somehow  an  accom- 
plice in  the  betrayal  of  the  twentieth  century  civili- 
zation, cries  with  remorseful  pity,  *'  The  bravest  of 
all  these  are  the  Belgians." 

Geography  sets  the  stage  for  the  drama  which 
is  always  playing  itself  out  on  this  Belgian  plain. 
Geography  fixes  the  entrances  and  the  exits.  It  de- 
termines the  chief  acts  of  the  tragedy,  allots  the  lead- 
ing r61es,  and  selects  the  band  of  conspirators  who 
furnish  the  dramatic  episode.  You  are  familiar  with 
that  stage  scene.  In  the  background  are  the  Ardennes 
hills  with  their  thickly  strewn  villages.  To  the  left 
you  see  the  blue  waters  of  the  North  Sea  sparkling 
in  the  sun  ;  to  the  right,  the  long  river  highway  of 
the  Rhine  leading  back  into  the  heart  of  Europe.  In 
the  foreground,  by  the  low  bank  of  the  river  Scheldt, 
stands  always  the  figure  of  Belgium,  like  Elsa  of 
Brabant,  lifting  up  her  hands  to  Heaven,  praying 
for  a  champion  who  shall  defend  her  cause.  And 
more  than  once  in  history  that  champion  has  come 
from  the  sea,  sailing  up  the  winding  course  of  the 
Scheldt  in  his  white-winged  boat,  like  the  Knight 
of  the  Holy  Grail. 


80       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

When  the  research  student  has  collected  all  the 
necessary  material  and  has  deduced  from  it  the  sci- 
entific principle,  the  problem  is  to  put  it  all,  both 
data  and  conclusion,  into  literary  form.  For  an- 
thropo-geography,  having  to  do  with  mankind,  is 
entitled  to  the  same  literary  treatment  as  the  best 
history.  The  scientist,  barred  from  the  easy-running 
narrative  of  the  historian,  must  nevertheless  make 
his  style  move  as  smoothly.  As  a  scientist  he  must 
load  up  each  sentence  as  if  it  were  a  pack-horse, 
and  he  must  place  each  parcel  of  data  accurately, 
lest  it  fall  off.  Higher  and  higher  grows  the  load. 
He  must  compress  the  unwieldy  mass,  shape  and 
model  it  to  better  balance  and  better  form,  but  los- 
ing nothing.  The  heavy  load  is  reduced,  but  it  is 
all  there.  Its  ugly  shape  is  changed,  but  its  content 
remains  unaltered.  The  pack-horse  carries  his  bur- 
den more  easily ;  he  scarcely  perceives  its  weight. 
More  smoothly,  more  swiftly,  he  moves.  He  spreads 
his  wings!  Your  pack-horse  has  become  Pegasus. 
Your  book  is  literature  but  it  is  still  science,  Darwin- 
ian in  method  but  Hellenic  in  form.  Thus  it  seeks 
to  establish  two  claims  to  immortality:  Truth  that  is 
eternal,  and  Beauty  that  is  eternal. 

Such  is  the  field  of  activity,  such  is  the  reward 
to  which  I  would  invite  you  all, — because  I  love 
you. 


The  Highest  Education  for  Women 

BY  JULIA  CLIFFORD  LATHROP,  Class  of 'so 
Chief  of  the  Children' s  Bureau,  United  States  Defiartment  of  Labor 

MAY  I  preface  what  I  wish  to  say  by  asking 
the  special  indulgence  of  the  mothers  and  the 
teachers  who  form  so  large  a  part  of  this  audience  ? 
To  both  I  speak  with  the  mingled  timidity  and 
confidence  of  one  whose  long  observation  has  been 
unhampered  by  experience. 

The  founding  of  Vassar  gave  a  substantial  re- 
sponse to  the  slowly-grown  demand  for  schools  of 
equal  standards  for  all  youth,  and  we  cannot  be  too 
grateful  for  the  courage  of  Matthew  Vassar,  who 
ventured  his  estate  to  express  his  idea  of  simple  jus- 
tice to  American  girls.  For  fifty  years  what  is  known 
as  the  higher  education  of  women  has  been  a  policy, 
whose  growth  is  sign  enough  of  the  approval  it  has 
earned. 

The  higher  education  in  the  great  group  of 
women's  colleges  has  been  and  still  is  purely  cul- 
tural, avowedly  and  inevitably  offering  to  women 
the  precise  cultural  studies  offered  to  men,  keep- 
ing pace  in  implicit  faithfulness  with  the  develop- 
ment of  cultural  courses  in  the  leading  schools  for 
the  education  of  men.  How  and  why  these  cultural 
courses  have  widened  might  well  be  the  subject  of 


82       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

a  careful  study.  The  changes  are  a  conservative 
running  index  of  what  we  like  to  believe  is  the  grow- 
ing democracy  of  our  intellectual  interests ;  but  the 
point  is  that  these  courses  are  oifered  as  cultural, 
part  of  the  unspecialized  training  of  an  educated  per- 
son, or  part  of  the  training  preliminary  to  special 
training.  Perhaps  there  is  no  one  left  to  question  the 
ability  of  women  to  take  in  and  take  on  this  culture. 
At  any  rate,  for  our  purpose  let  us  consider  closed 
the  question  of  assimilation. 

On  the  basis  of  this  cultural  study,  men's  col- 
leges have  added  professional  schools  in  growing 
variety,  serving  the  needs  of  a  few  thousands  each 
in  pursuits  dignified  and  useful,  but  not  absolutely 
essential  to  the  existence  of  the  race.  To  certain  of 
these  schools  women  have  been  more  or  less  pain- 
fully admitted;  but  they  remain  men's  schools  for 
men's  pursuits,  and  the  great  foundations  for  ori- 
ginal research  are  men's  foundations.  And  the  inti- 
mations that  women's  powers  are  powers  of  assim- 
ilation continue  to  be  heard. 

The  very  words  "higher  education"  challenge 
us  to  the  superlative  and  push  us  to  the  subject  I 
have  ventured  to  state.  What  is  the  highest  educa- 
tion of  women,  and  what  are  some  of  its  immedi- 
ate possibilities?  No  one  would  be  bold  enough  to 
say  that  we  can  discern  all  these  possibilities,  and 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        83 

as  for  the  ultimate  development  of  the  education  of 
women,  it  is  as  far  beyond  our  ken  as  the  Vassar 
campus  is  beyond  the  imagination  of  the  cave- 
woman.  May  I  venture  to  define  crudely  the  highest 
education  of  our  day  as  that  which,  upon  a  cultural 
basis,  gives  the  mind  an  ardor  for  discovering  facts 
and  relating  them  to  the  truth,  and  which  provides 
the  technical  equipment  of  training  for  independent 
research? 

The  more  fully  we  examine  the  scope  of  the  grad- 
uate professional  schools,  and  the  wide  sweep  of  the 
great  foundations  for  original  research,  the  more  it 
becomes  apparent  that  there  is  one  great  interest  not 
yet  made  a  subject  of  that  study  for  which  the  high- 
est education  prepares.  The  one  great  avocation  con- 
stantly requiring  the  unsparing  service  of  millions 
of  women  is  the  rearing  of  children  and  the  conduct 
of  a  household.  The  most  universal  and  essential  of 
employments,  it  remains  the  most  neglected  by  sci- 
ence, a  neglect  long  hidden  behind  tradition  and  sen- 
timentality. Can  women  of  the  higher  education  do 
less  than  undertake  to  put  an  end  to  this  neglect, 
to  begin  to  place  investigation  and  research  directly 
at  the  service  of  the  cult  of  the  family,  and  to  start 
forward  on  paths  by  which  the  most  important  call- 
ing in  the  world  shall  gradually  acquire  professional 
status?  The  highest  education  of  women,  then,  I 


84       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

wish  to  define  in  terms  of  the  needs  of  our  own  time, 
as  training  in  original  research  applied  to  the  life 
and  interests  of  the  family. 

Women  of  the  higher  education  have  vindicated 
the  value  of  freedom  for  individual  development.  The 
family  type  based  upon  equal  individual  culture  of 
both  parents  gives  a  further  vindication  of  women's 
higher  education.  Family  democracy  can  only  lead 
toward  social  democracy,  slowly,  indeed,  but  surely. 
Undoubtedly  the  family  has  been  gradually  gaining 
in  efficiency  and  in  refinement  since  rivers  ran  to 
the  sea.  Yet  as  Ellen  Richards  laboriously  analyzed 
those  waters  and  showed  us  how  to  keep  them  pure 
for  human  use,  so,  we  may  be  sure,  the  study  of  the 
family  will  reveal  new  material  and  moral  standards 
and  the  practical  means  of  securing  them. 

As  a  few  evidences  of  the  need  of  study  of  the 
family,  we  may  remind  ourselves  that  we  do  not 
understand  life  at  the  source,  nor  the  reasons  for  its 
known  wastage,  nor  how  to  economize  the  health 
and  well-being  of  the  race  by  minimizing  this  wast- 
age. The  subject  has  been  regarded  with  such  fatal- 
istic indifference  that  we  do  not  yet  know  how  many 
children  are  born,  nor  how  many  die,  nor  why  they 
die  in  our  own  country,  while  the  more  intensive 
knowledge  of  infant  well-being  which  would  enable 
us  to  establish  convincingly  its  relationship  to  social 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        85 

well-being  and  to  the  rectitude  and  intelligence  of 
parents  is  yet  to  be  secured  and  analyzed. 

We  know  strangely  little  of  the  growth  of  the 
child's  mind.  Not  long  ago  the  advice  of  a  distin- 
guished alienist  was  sought  as  to  the  practical  value 
of  studies  of  the  mental  development  of  normal  chil- 
dren in  earliest  infancy  and  during  the  years  before 
the  school  and  the  outside  world  directly  affect  the 
child.  He  replied  that  such  studies  are  of  the  high- 
est value ;  that  their  primary  usefulness  as  aids  in 
working  out  the  best  home  training  of  all  children 
goes  without  saying ;  and  that  naturally  enough  he 
thought  of  them  as  especially  needful  because  of 
the  light  they  would  throw  on  the  baffling  questions 
with  which  an  alienist  wrestles  in  dealing  with  the 
history  of  mental  disaster.  Such  studies  can  be  made 
only  by  aid  of  the  observations  of  individual  mothers . 
Is  it  not  a  complete  revelation  of  our  unconscious 
relegation  of  the  processes  of  human  development  to 
the  limbo  of  instinct  that,  while  there  are  perhaps 
thirteen  million  mothers  in  this  country,  there  are 
at  best  about  a  half  dozen  such  studies  (made  by 
fathers  and  mothers  jointly),  and  that  in  attempting 
a  plan  for  such  studies  a  great  difficulty  is  present  in 
finding  a  competent  director? 

We  do  not  know  the  constitution  of  the  Ameri- 
can family.  I  speak  of  thirteen  million  mothers,  but 


86       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

that  is  only  an  estimate  based  on  the  enumeration  of 
women  who  are  heads  of  households.  No  one  really 
knows.  The  government  census  has  never  been  di- 
rected to  state  the  number,  though  this  and  much 
other  precious  information  as  to  the  constitution  of 
every  family  in  the  country  lies  unused  upon  the 
millions  of  untabulated  schedules  filed  away  for  the 
last  thirty  years  in  the  census  archives. 

We  do  not  know  how  extensive  is  the  industrial 
employment  of  married  women,  nor  its  effect  upon 
children  and  family  life,  nor  when  it  is  a  result  of  a 
scale  of  wages  for  men  too  low  decently  to  support 
a  family,  nor  whether  it  is  sometimes  the  cause  of  a 
low  scale  of  wages  for  men,  nor  when  it  is  fair  to  all 
concerned,  including  society  at  large,  that  mothers 
should  work  for  hire.  Worst  ignorance  of  all,  we 
do  not  know  what  is  the  decent  support  of  a  family, 
nor  the  factors  that  affect  the  question  in  a  world 
where  democratic  efficiency  is  still  only  beginning 
to  struggle  up  from  feudal  efficiency.  All  these  are 
questions  whose  answers  can  never  be  complete  nor 
right  until  they  are  expressed  in  terms  of  the  family. 

If  we  cared  to  ask,  these  unregarded  census  fig- 
ures could  tell  us  various  facts  which  are  now  seem- 
ing mysteries.  They  could  tell  the  numbers  of  mar- 
ried women  in  industry,  their  ages,  the  ages  and 
numbers  of  their  children,  how  many  children  have 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        87 

lived  and  how  many  have  perished,  the  occupation 
of  the  fathers  and  mothers,  and  where  the  loss  of 
child  life  is  greatest.  They  could  give  an  intimation 
of  the  numbers  of  families  whose  mothers  are  bur- 
dened and  whose  privacy  is  infringed  by  lodgers 
and  boarders.  Yet  there  has  been  no  demand  for  this 
information,  and  the  material  gathered  in  1890,  in 
1900,  and  in  1910  remains  untouched. 

Does  the  question  of  domestic  service  interest  you 
in  an  academic  or  a  practical  way?  The  unpublished 
census  figures  hold  the  complete  history  of  the  shifts 
in  the  nationality  and  distribution  of  this  service  for 
thirty  years.  Would  you  know  how  many  families 
have  servants  ?  Would  you  know  how  many  women 
perform  with  their  own  hands  every  daily  task  for 
their  husbands  and  children?  The  answers  are  in 
the  unpublished  sheets  of  the  census. 

I  have  referred  thus  in  detail  to  the  vast  resources 
of  unused  information  which  the  government  al- 
ready possesses  with  regard  to  the  family,  because 
I  know  of  no  other  illustration  which  indicates  so 
clearly  our  national  neglect, — the  unconsidered  neg- 
lect of  students,  the  unconscious  indifference  of  the 
public, — in  a  field  where  it  is  complacently  taken 
for  granted  that  our  emotions  and  personal  interests 
guarantee  our  efficient  attention. 

Again,  if  the  structure  of  the  family  is  unstud- 


88       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ied,  still  less  is  its  dissolution  understood.  The  pro- 
founder  causes  for  those  disasters  which  only  emerge 
in  the  divorce  court  among  persons  of  appreciable 
income  are  not  indicated  by  the  oft-quoted  census 
figures  of  1910,  which  show  that  one  in  twelve  of 
the  marriages  in  the  United  States  ends  in  divorce. 
May  it  not  be  that  the  efforts  of  law  and  religion  to 
cope  with  family  breakdown  lack  success  because 
to  its  study  have  not  been  called  the  wisest  repre- 
sentatives of  those  who  inevitably  suffer  most  in 
disastrous  marriages,  the  women  of  our  country? 

Again,  women  are  increasingly  the  direct  retail 
purchasers  of  the  country.  We  need  education  in 
family  expenditure,  in  the  prudent  apportionment 
of  an  income,  in  discrimination  as  to  the  quality 
of  every  article  and  function  which  enters  into  the 
family  life.  Here  we  are  confronted  perhaps  more 
simply  and  directly  than  in  apparently  larger  issues 
with  the  fact  that  no  family  lives  to  itself  alone. 
For  years  a  little  group  of  people  have  urged  the 
purchaser's  responsibility,  first  because  unwhole- 
some conditions  of  production  may  bring  injury  to 
the  family  of  the  purchaser,  but  finally  and  conclu- 
sively because  bad  conditions  of  production  certainly 
injure  the  producer's  own  family ;  and  once  our  eyes 
are  opened  we  see  a  thousand  proofs  that  the  injury 
of  one  family  is  the  concern  of  all.  We  may  well  be 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        89 

proud  of  the  scholarly  work  of  the  Vassar  faculty 
and  alumnae  in  many  fields,  but  at  no  point  more 
than  here,  where  pioneer  studies  in  domestic  econ- 
omy by  Ellen  Richards  and  Miss  Salmon  have 
pointed  the  way  for  future  independent  students. 

I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  tragic  family  impor- 
tance of  that  helpless  residue  of  social  wastage 
whose  index  is  the  population  of  our  charitable  and 
penal  institutions,  yet  I  believe  that  a  greater  prom- 
ise of  usefulness  lies  in  studying  normal  life.  May 
it  not  be  that  this  very  social  wastage  will  be  saved, 
not  by  repression  or  cure  or  prevention,  but  by  con- 
struction, by  strengthening  the  general  fabric  of 
human  society  as  the  physician  combats  disease,  by 
increasing  bodily  vigor  and  the  power  of  resistance? 

Consider  what  the  mere  establishment  of  a  single 
centre  of  training  for  research  in  the  problems  of  the 
family  would  mean.  Would  it  mean  less  for  family 
life  than  the  founding  of  this  college  meant  for  the 
individual  student  ?  I  think  far  more,  because  it  could 
build  upon  that  cultural  basis  which  the  last  fifty 
years  have  developed.  Perhaps  wisely  our  greater 
women's  colleges  have  thus  far  kept  aloof  from  any 
interest  in  the  practical  arts  of  daily  family  life. 

Yet  independently  a  wide  movement  for  bettering 
the  household  has  begun,  helped  by  the  re-discovery 
of  the  preciousness  of  the  worker's  hand  along  with 


90       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  scholar's  eye.  The  public  schools  have  given  us 
manual  training  and  kindergartens  and  finally  cook- 
ing and  sewing,  the  state  normal  schools  and  the 
state  universities  have  developed  courses  and  teach- 
ers' training  classes  in  domestic  science.  A  few  pub- 
lic schools  have  begun  to  teach  practical  housewifery 
in  a  practical  manner,  and  city  health  departments 
have  developed  Little  Mothers'  Leagues.  There  are 
a  few  notable  instances  of  rural  schools  which  are 
also  the  teachers'  homes,  in  which  the  usual  work 
of  daily  life  is  well  taught.  Certain  girls'  schools  and 
technical  institutions  offer  practical  instruction  in 
household  arts. 

But  nowhere  is  there  any  centre  for  research  and 
discover}^,  nowhere  a  centre  where  choice  minds  are 
devoting  their  powers  to  the  philosophy  of  the  inev- 
itable labors  of  the  average  household,  to  develop- 
ing by  original  study  improved  care  of  the  young 
who  must  be  nurtured  there,  new  expedients  for  en- 
riching the  lives  of  the  adults  who  should  be  happy 
there.  Nowhere  patient  research  gives  the  authori- 
tative sanction  which  would  elevate  into  a  national 
system,  strong,  free,  elastic,  the  cult  of  the  Ameri- 
can family. 

A  graduate  school  would  train  a  certain  number 
of  persons  in  the  art  of  independent  research  in  va- 
rious fields.  It  would  necessarily  be  also  a  centre  of 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        91 

research  because  such  training  must  be  done  by  con- 
tact with  actual  problems.  Much  of  its  work  would 
be  extra-mural.  It  could,  for  instance,  enHst  the  aid 
of  many  thousand  mothers  every  year.  Such  cen- 
tres of  research  would  serve  to  correlate  and  inspire 
the  many  scattered  educational  activities  now  exist- 
ing, all  of  which  are  making  more  eifective  the  work 
of  the  average  household  by  placing  at  its  service 
the  inventions  and  appliances  of  modern  science. 
Nothing  could  be  more  unfortunate  than  any  effort 
to  control  the  practical  teaching  already  under  way : 
nothing,  on  the  other  hand,  more  helpful  and  wel- 
come than  centres  of  original  study  to  which  prac- 
tical people  could  turn  for  inspiration  and  help. 
Again,  such  centres  would  by  their  extra-mural  re- 
lations be  kept  constantly  aware  of  the  practical 
aspects  of  their  varying  studies. 

Are  some  of  you  thinking  that  this  is  far-fetched? 
That  wisdom  does,  after  all,  make  its  contribution 
through  the  individual  to  the  home  finally,  that  good 
parents  —  the  only  numerous  class  of  parents  — 
create  good  households,  and  that  the  natural  devo- 
tion of  mothers  can  still  be  trusted?  May  I  reply  that 
mother  love  can  be  trusted,  but  that  we  presume 
upon  it?  Maternal  affection  is  the  most  precious  sur- 
vival of  instinctive  life.  By  its  motive  power  millions 
of  women  daily  perform  miracles  of  patient  toil,  but 


92       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Nature  has  withdrawn  from  the  human  mother  the 
instinctive  wisdom  which,  as  Fabre  has  shown,  she 
bestows  so  lavishly  upon  the  hymenoptera.  What 
may  we  not  hope  for  the  future  of  the  race  when 
we  put  at  the  service  of  the  human  mother's  intel- 
ligence the  continually  growing  discoveries  of  re- 
search? 

I  do  not  propose  a  small  thing  nor  a  cheap  thing 
in  urging  that  the  present  status  of  the  education  of 
women  demands  a  new  specialization,  to  be  signal- 
ized by  the  creation  of  centres  of  study  and  research 
in  the  service  of  family  Hfe.  It  means  not  only  great 
endowment  of  money,  it  means  the  greater  endow- 
ment of  trained  minds  set  to  the  task  of  working 
out  the  expedients,  of  fashioning  the  tools  of  expres- 
sion, by  which  that  profound  maternal  instinct, 
reinforced  by  intelligence,  may  freely  work  out  the 
destiny  of  the  young  of  the  race. 

It  is  no  less  than  a  revolution  which  is  implied. 
Its  aim  is  to  give  the  work  of  the  woman  head  of 
a  household  the  status  of  a  profession .  This  change 
has  already  begun,  and  I  have  referred  to  the  many 
beginnings  of  teaching  applied  household  econom- 
ics as  a  sign  of  the  coming  change.  The  question  is 
whether  the  women  of  the  higher  education  shall 
strengthen  the  movement  directly  and  avowedly. 
ELarlier,  when  individual  development  was  the  goal 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        93 

of  education,  how  often  has  it  been  said  of  a  wo- 
man, "Now  she  is  married.  What  good  will  all 
that  education  do  her  ? ' '  With  the  highest  educa- 
tion creating  great  centres  of  study  through  which 
to  utilize  and  co-ordinate  the  observations  of  moth- 
ers, do  we  not  begin  to  see  at  once  a  new  application 
for  the  higher  education  ?  Mothers  of  the  next  gen- 
eration will  need,  not  to  resign  themselves  to  the  limi- 
tations of  their  fate,  but  rather  to  equip  themselves 
for  its  illimitable  opportunities.  Instead  of  being 
isolated  by  the  narrow  life  of  home,  through  it  the 
mother  allies  herself  to  the  highest  studies  and  makes 
invaluable  contributions  as  a  sheer  by-product  of 
her  daily  cares. 

The  legal  emancipations  of  women  are  coming 
fast.  The  rapidity  of  her  further  educational  eman- 
cipation rests  with  herself.  It  is  now  partial;  she 
may  enter  the  recognized  professions,  those  which 
will  always  invite  a  small  minority  of  women.  It  is 
for  her  to  make  the  great  occupation  of  women  a 
profession,  to  see  that  the  highest  education  trains 
those  who  shall  contribute  toward  that  profession's 
success. 

Posterity  will  smile  at  the  naivete  with  which  some 
of  us  incline  to  consider  women  no  longer  economi- 
cally useful  because  the  factory  has  freed  mothers 
from  certain  subsidiary  domestic  arts.  In  truth  she 


94       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

now  begins  to  have  time  and  vision  to  see  that  there 
are  real  and  growing  arts  in  the  physical  care  of  the 
young,  in  the  development  of  the  childish  mind  and 
behavior.  Above  all,  the  mother  of  to-day  may  look 
outside  her  own  door.  She  is  gaining  an  understand- 
ing that  no  home  prospers  or  perishes  to  itself  alone, 
that  the  doors  of  all  homes  open  on  the  highway  of 
a  common  happiness,  and  that  economic  values  are 
human  values.  We  begin  to  see  in  richer  terms  the 
equitable  meaning  of  society,  and  to  see  in  the  de- 
velopment of  that  meaning  a  task  to  be  performed 
by  women  chiefly,  which  will  demand  all  the  time 
and  wisdom  they  can  summon. 

I  have  spoken  of  women  and  to  women,  and  for 
that  very  reason  it  must  not  be  left  unsaid  that  in 
American  civilization  as  nowhere  else  in  the  world 
women  may  count  in  their  own  task  upon  the  aid 
of  the  one  force  more  wonderful  than  maternal  in- 
stinct, that  purest  product  of  civilization,  the  devo- 
tion of  the  father.  The  initiative  for  the  highest 
education  applied  to  the  service  of  the  family  rests 
with  women  :  the  carrying  out  must  be  done  jointly 
by  men  and  women,  since,  diverse  as  may  be  their 
daily  tasks,  the  interests  of  men  and  women  cannot 
be  separated.  Both  are  joined  in  the  great  onward 
march  of  the  race  toward  that  mysterious  end  which 
we  love  to  call  justice. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         95 

I  need  not  say  that  I  wish  Vassar  might  be  the 
first  college  for  women  to  add  such  a  graduate  school 
as  I  have  ventured  to  suggest  to  her  undergraduate 
college. 


New  Aspects  of 
Old  SoQial  Responsibilities 

BY  LILLIAN  D.  WALD 

Of  the  Henry  Street  Settlement,  JVenv  York  City 

1COME  to  you  with  very  mixed  emotions:  pride 
and  pleasijire  in  participating  in  the  celebration 
of  an  institution  tl^at  from  its  inception  has  carried 
so  many  implications  of  social  import;  and  a  very 
deep  regret  that,  unhappily  for  us  all,  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  this  college  is  denied  the  inspiration 
of  Jane  Addams's  presence,  and  that  a  substitute 
must  come  in  the  place  of  the  wise  woman  of  Amer- 
ica, the  leader,  I  venture  to  say,  of  social  thought  in 
her  generation. 

The  other  speakers  have  intimated,  and  I  will 
reiterate  the  fact,  that  the  business  of  being  a  woman 
has  not  altered  in  its  essentials  since  history  has 
been  first  recorded,  and  the  so-called  ' '  new  woman ' ' 
could,  if  she  would,  defend  her  position  by  time- 
honored  custom  and  the  traditional  sanction  of  the 
ages.  The  wise  book  long  ago  describing  the  ideal 
woman  of  Biblical  days  claimed  for  her  worldly  at- 
tributes and  great  efficiency,  associated  with  tender 
feeling  and  a  social  conscience. 

*'She  seeketh  wool,  and  flax,  and  worketh  will- 
ingly with  her  hands."  A  consumer  and  a  producer. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES         97 

"She  considereth  a  field, and  buyeth  it:  with  the 
fruit  of  her  hands  she  planteth  a  vineyard."  In  the 
real  estate  business  and  an  agricultural  student. 

''She  girdeth  her  loins  with  strength,  and 
strengtheneth  her  arms."  A  winner  of  athletic 
honors. 

"  She  perceiveth  that  her  merchandise  is  good: 
her  candle  goeth  not  out  by  night."  An  expert,  and 
doubdess  an  advocate  of  the  double  shift. 

' '  She  stretcheth  out  her  hand  to  the  poor ;  yea,  she 
reacheth  forth  her  hands  to  the  needy."  A  member 
in  good  standing  of  the  Associated  Charities. 

She  maketh  herself  coverings  of  tapestry ;  her 
clothing  is  silk  and  purple."  A  patron  of  arts  and 
crafts. 

Her  husband  is  known  in  the  gates,  when  he  sit- 
teth  among  the  elders  of  the  land. "  The  implication 
here  is  that  she  has  made  a  man  of  her  husband. 

' '  She  openeth  her  mouth  with  wisdom ;  and  in 
her  tongue  is  the  law  of  kindness. ' '  Plainly  the  social 
worker. 

Give  her  of  the  fruits  of  her  hands ;  and  let  her 
own  works  praise  her  in  the  gates."  In  other  words, 
she  is  an  individual  who  must  stand  or  fall  as  she  is 
worthy  or  otherwise. 

But  the  old  social  theory  was  established  in  the 
belief  that  the  individual  was  supreme;  and  then. 


98       VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

with  civilization's  advance,  responsibility  was  ex- 
tended to  cover  the  family  and  the  tribal  group, 
which  meant  an  increased  group  consciousness  with 
the  lessening  of  individual  authority,  not  revolu- 
tionary in  any  sense,  but  logically  evolutionary  from 
the  social  concept.  And  now  the  larger  social  groups 
included  in  the  present  conception  of  responsibility 
bring  new  aspects  of  the  position  that  women  must 
take  to  hold  to  their  importance  and  their  dignity  and 
to  be  a  part  of  the  progress  of  religion ,  of  the  sciences, 
and  of  the  humanities,  that  are  the  essence  of  civiliza- 
tion,— not  to  be  the  flying  buttresses  that  support 
the  cathedral  arches  in  an  auxiliary  architectural 
capacity,  but,  if  inspired  and  competent,  to  be  even 
the  pillars  within  the  sacred  edifice  itself.  The  new 
application  of  the  gospel  that  has  been  preached 
within  this  sacred  edifice  throughout  the  ages  sounds 
a  note  of  the  same  change.  The  conception  of  religion 
has  extended  from  the  individual  to  society;  a  true 
religion  fills  the  need  of  both.  Economics  and  gov- 
ernment and  a  rational  view  of  religion  are  based  on 
human  needs ;  and  fundamental  human  needs  under- 
lie the  so-called  labor  and  woman's  movements. 

Years  ago,  when  I  first  became  acquainted  with 
the  working  girls,  they  made  the  light  penetrate 
to  me  until  I  saw  that  the  trade  union,  even  the 
strike  and  the  boycott,  were  in  reality  a  part  of  the 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES        99 

struggle  of  the  young  women  to  hold  to  their  pre- 
cious inheritances, — shorter  hours  to  enable  them 
to  learn  to  keep  the  home,  to  work,  to  sew,  to  read,  to 
be  courted,  and  better  pay  to  adorn  themselves  that 
they  might  find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  man.  And  the 
theory  of  individual  competition  has  given  place  in 
their  minds  to  the  moral  conviction  of  fidelity  to 
socially  established  standards,  for  the  maintenance 
of  which  the  individual,  even  the  family,  may  be 
sacrificed  that  the  larger  group  may  profit. 

Our  forebears,  working  in  the  home,  thought  only 
of  the  needs  of  the  family.  As  home  work  became 
factory  work,  the  home  worker  became  the  factory 
worker.  In  the  early  days  she  felt  little  of  the  social 
philosophy  which  was  embodied  in  her  service ;  but 
that  has  developed,  and  with  the  understanding  of 
collective  bargaining,  broader  ethics  have  been  es- 
tablished among  the  working  women.  To-day  they 
consider  the  individual  in  industry  who  seeks  her 
own  interests  in  defiance  of  group  ethics  almost  an 
outcast,  scorned  as  a  "  scab, ' '  as  those  who  have  de- 
fied the  sanctity  of  family  life  have  been  condemned 
by  society ;  and  in  this  they  are  mentally  and  mor- 
ally comrades  of  the  modern  progressive  economists 
and  labor  leaders  among  men. 

The  new  aspect  of  social  responsibility  in  industry 
takes  organized  form  among  other  women  who,  fit- 


100     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ting  themselves  to  the  environment  of  an  age  of  ma- 
chinery, band  together  in  groups,  as  in  the  Consum- 
ers' League,  the  Women's  Trade  Union  League; 
and  they  have  not  hesitated  to  use,  for  sound  moral 
purposes,  methods  that,  not  long  ago,  might  have 
been  considered  unladylike  and  unwomanly.  Con- 
scientious women  of  a  great  city  of  Illinois  joined 
with  church  dignitaries  to  agitate  publicly  for  the 
boycott  of  department  stores  which  would  not  adopt 
early  closing  hours ;  and  the  Minimum  Wage  Board 
of  Massachusetts  embodies  the  idea  of  the  boycott 
by  advertising  in  the  counties  of  the  state  those  em- 
ployers who  fall  below  the  social-industrial  stand- 
ards. Dramatic  expression  of  the  new  psychology 
was  presented  in  Connecticut,  not  long  ago,  when  a 
number  of  women  workers  conducted  a  twenty-four 
hour  strike,  followed  by  a  Labor  Day  procession, 
floats,  and  a  steamer  excursion,  their  employer  fol- 
lowing their  demonstration  by  a  public  statement  of 
his  conviction  that  the  eight  hour  standard  for  which 
they  had  contested  was  socially  and  industrially  ad- 
vantageous. Manufacturers  in  that  town  and  others 
throughout  the  state  have  followed  this  leadership. 
Public  opinion  supports  the  wisdom  and  social  value 
of  maintaining  this  standard,  and,  where  girls  are 
concerned,  the  emphasis  has  always  been  laid  upon 
the  fact  that  the  conservation  of  their  health  and 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ABtiRESSE'S      Ibi 

their  morals  makes  them  better  mothers  and  better 
home-makers. 

In  Pennsylvania,  a  few  days  ago,  a  whole  city  paid 
deference  to  a  woman  who,  loving  trees  and  beauty 
in  nature,  conceived  the  great  thought  of  transform- 
ing an  ugly,  disfigured  city  into  one  of  beauty. 
Through  her  perseverance  and  great  patience,  and 
because  she  brought  knowledge  and  fact  to  brace 
her  arguments,  she  succeeded  in  getting  civic  pride 
and  enthusiasm  roused  to  the  endurance  of  an  in- 
creased tax  rate  for  this  end.  She  has  carried  out 
into  the  world  beyond  her  own  garden  her  convic- 
tion of  the  importance  of  beauty  and  order,  and  has 
made  the  city  profit  by  her  taste  and  education  and 
painstaking  labors.  Not  having  the  happiness  of 
possessing  children  of  her  own,  she  has  exerted  her 
powers  to  secure  opportunities  for  all  the  children 
of  her  city. 

In  Indiana,  legislation  for  better  housing  has  been 
brought  about  by  a  devoted  home-maker.  Because 
she  felt  that  the  nation's  life  rested  upon  the  home 
and  because  the  home  was  so  precious  to  her,  she 
wrought  * 'beauty  out  of  ashes"  for  her  state,  sac- 
rificing the  peaceful  and  quiet  enjoyment  of  her  own 
home,  until,  by  force  of  all  the  methods  and  enthu- 
siasms of  a  zealot,  better  homes  were  insured  for 
other  families  than  her  own. 


ioa't^ASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

The  halos  that  encircled  the  saints  of  long  ago 
might  occasionally  and  with  propriety  be  transferred 
to  the  pilgrims  who,  foot-sore  and  weary,  stand  at 
the  gates  of  state  capitals  petitioning  for  legislation 
to  ameliorate  and  reform,  fitting  themselves  to  speak 
a  language  according  to  the  law,  and  adjusting  their 
powers  of  persuasion  to  meet  the  newer  require- 
ments of  legislative  exigencies. 

Euripides  made  the  lament  of  the  Trojan  women 
sound  down  two  thousand  years,  and  but  yester- 
day women  gathered  across  the  seas  to  state  their 
abhorrence  of  war,  and  on  a  world  stage  to  declare 
that  they  were  conveyers  of  a  message  for  vast  num- 
bers of  women  in  every  land, — -the  belief  that  life 
is  precious  and  that  to  destroy  it  is  a  wanton  and 
unpardonable  crime,  a  barbarism  that  women  ac- 
customed to  band  together  for  the  conservation  of 
life  would  no  longer  brook.  At  a  stage  in  history 
when  women  were  first  organizable,  they  came  to- 
gether during  war  to  protest  against  war  and  to  offer 
reasonable  substitutes  for  settling  international  dis- 
agreements. 

Doubtless  the  first  profession  for  woman  (for  its 
roots  are  set  in  the  care  of  the  young)  is  that  of  the 
nurse ;  and  it  has  accompanied  her  progress  through- 
out the  ages.  It  was  a  woman  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion, one  who  knew  her  Greek  and  Latin  and  whose 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       103 

mind  touched  the  minds  of  the  erudite  of  her  age, 
who  had  a  vision  of  the  great  responsibility  that  lay 
upon  her  to  apply  her  warm  sympathy,  her  woman's 
traditional  aptitude  and  trained  hands  and  intellect, 
to  the  soldiers,  the  camp,  the  sanitation  of  villages 
in  India  and  at  home;  and,  when  hideous  war  was 
over,  to  expand  her  socialized  womanly  influence  to 
cover  the  almshouses,  the  hospitals,  to  break  down 
the  red-tape  bureaucracy  and  the  antiquated  meth- 
ods of  war  offices,  to  write  books  on  nursing  and 
sanitation  and  protective  health  measures.  This  one 
woman's  influence  was  dynamic,  and  was  so  felt 
around  the  world.  Florence  Nightingale  lifted  the 
vague,  casual,  though  kindly  and  devoted,  feeling 
of  women  into  organized,  efficient,  and  invaluable 
service;  she  enlarged  the  nurse's  vision  to  sympa- 
thy for  great  groups  outside  her  family  or  particular 
tribe. 

In  the  last  two  decades,  coincident  with  a  social 
unrest  because  of  things  detrimental  to  human  hap- 
piness, the  nurse  has  emerged  into  public  move- 
ments. The  appeal  to  her  is  the  appeal  of  the  com- 
munity. And  that  is  not  at  the  cost  of  the  single 
patient  or  the  single  mother,  but  because  of  the 
sanctity  of  life  and  motherhood,  and  the  conviction 
that  the  mother,  as  well  as  the  unborn  child  and 
the  infant  newly  born,  have  become  the  trust  of 


104     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

society.  These  things  challenge  the  attention  of  the 
educated  nurse  to-day.  It  has  become  her  respon- 
sibility to  make  practical  application  in  the  homes 
of  the  people  of  the  results  of  scientific  thought 
and  research.  Nurses  have  united  together  in  a  na- 
tional society  that  they  may  help  and  inspire  one 
another,  that  the  community  may  obtain  the  utmost 
advantage  possible  from  this  age-old  profession  of 
women.  It  is  now  little  more  than  two  years  since 
they  gathered  for  the  first  time  to  record  as  an  or- 
ganization their  interest  in  and  identification  with 
the  numerous  phases  of  the  public  health  move- 
ments and  the  promotion  of  right  living.  There 
were  among  them  women  who  had  taken  the  initia- 
tive in  compelling  the  public  to  focus  attention  on 
constructive,  preventive,  supervisory  methods,  that 
an  active  cult  of  health  might  be  built  up.  Creative 
minds  among  them  have  been  at  work  that  nurses 
may  be  directed  toward  a  goal  of  social  betterment ; 
and  this  purpose  marches  side  by  side  with  the  an- 
cient ideal  of  a  consolatory  and  alleviating  service. 
It  is  this  most  modern  aspect  of  nursing  that  suc- 
cessfully enlists  the  social  minded  woman,  because 
her  work  has  become  an  essential  part  of  an  harmo- 
nious whole. 

The  first  woman  physician  in  America  died  only 
a  few  years  ago,  and  the  first  woman  to  study  medi- 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       105 

cine  in  Holland,  still  vigorous  and  full  of  zeal  for  the 
free  exercise  of  woman's  ability,  has  been  in  Amer- 
ica for  the  last  few  weeks,  undaunted  by  war,  a 
crusader  of  peace  for  the  great  human  cause. 

Women,  and  with  them  at  times  far-seeing  men, 
prophetic  because  they  knew  the  movements  of  the 
past,  have  helped  to  open  up  opportunities  in  the 
professions,  not  as  special  privileges,  but  so  to  en- 
dow woman  that  her  natural  gifts  might  come  to  full 
fruition,  and  not  for  her,  the  individual,  but  for  all 
— womankind  and  mankind — to  serve  the  commu- 
nity. To  adjust  her  education  to  meet  the  new  and 
enlarging  need,  great  universities  have  established 
chairs  of  nursing  and  hygiene  and  home  economics, 
dignifying  old  and  domestic  occupations  with  pro- 
fessional standards. 

In  those  countries  and  states  where  political  equal- 
ity has  been  established  I  see  demonstrations  of  self- 
realization,  and  almost  always  the  development  of 
those  inclinations  that  are  traditional.  New  Zealand, 
remote  and  therefore  not  within  the  zone  of  local 
referendum  controversy,  has — I  think  not  acciden- 
tally— the  lowest  infant  mortality  rate  in  the  world. 
In  Norway  the  legislature  has  lifted  a  cruel  handi- 
cap from  illegitimate  children.  Into  the  realm  of  fed- 
eral control  human  needs  have  been  brought,  as  con- 
trasted with  material  and  academic  and  diplomatic 


106     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

functions  of  the  government.  A  Federal  Bureau  for 
Children,  its  chief  a  woman,  one  of  your  own :  what 
new  and  mannish  venture  does  she  embark  on?  She 
rouses  the  nation — or  tries  to  rouse  it — to  the 
neglect  of  the  baby.  She  takes  the  baby  out  of  the 
obscure,  so  often  neglected  and  hidden  crib  into  the 
full  light  of  publicity.  "  Suffer  not  this  little  one  to 
be  lost  sight  of.  It  is  a  child  of  the  nation !  "  This 
bureau  is  a  telling  illustration  of  my  theme.  The 
former  often  only  sentimental  portrayal  of  the  child 
is  replaced  by  irrefutable  mortality  data,  and  these 
are  shown  to  be  related  to  high  rent  rates  and  low 
wage  scales, — twin  home  destroyers.  That  is  one 
of  the  things  that  women  do  when  they  function  in 
public  life.  They  exercise  their  intelligence  for  the 
preservation  of  the  things  that  are  important  to  them 
and  have  always  been  and  always  will  be. 

Upon  the  educated  woman  more  particularly  de- 
volves the  task  of  re-adapting  the  social  interests  of 
her  sex  to  a  changed  physical  and  spiritual  environ- 
ment. She  should,  as  a  member  in  good  standing 
of  the  great  society,  be  the  co-ordinator  of  human 
values.  The  task  of  organizing  human  happiness 
needs  the  active  co-operation  of  men  and  women ; 
it  cannot  be  relegated  to  one-half  the  world,  and 
active  co-operation  for  such  noble  ends  cannot  be  se- 
cured unless  men  and  women  really  work  together. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       107 

Women  have  been  experiencing  the  growth  of  a 
new  consciousness,  an  integral  element  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  self-government ;  and  as  a  result  many  more 
women  than  ever  believe  that  they  can  best  repre- 
sent human  interests  in  government,  at  least  that 
they  can  best  represent  themselves  in  those  mea- 
sures that  immediately  concern  them  and  for  which 
tradition  and  experience  have  fitted  them.  They  are 
more  earnestly  aware  of  the  social  responsibility  that 
rests  upon  them.  Colleges  and  professional  schools 
have  prepared  the  way  for  the  citizenship  of  women, 
as  have  also  the  factories  and  the  department  stores. 
The  restricted,  secluded,  non-earning  woman  was 
logically  a  dependent,  and  her  efforts  were  confined 
to  the  field  of  her  home  activity.  The  time  has  passed 
when  the  removal  of  those  activities  constituted  a 
great  venture ;  we  have  long  since  accustomed  our- 
selves to  the  idea  of  her  transplantation,  and  with 
the  statistics  of  women  who  earn  their  own  living 
before  us,  no  longer  can  the  idea  of  chivalrous  male 
protection  be  all-impressive.  Nothing  really  good  has 
been  lost,  and  a  very  fine  kind  of  comradeship — to 
my  mind  even  a  greater  romance  of  comradeship — 
has  been  made  possible  between  men  and  women. 
The  fear  that  disturbs  some  that  the  altered  relation- 
ship between  men  and  women  may  develop  a  de- 
structive sex  antagonism,  is,  I  believe,  wholly  with- 


108     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

out  foundation.  The  roots  of  public  social  service 
and  responsibility  are  deeply  planted  in  the  nature 
of  woman,  and  what  we  are  witnessing  in  our  gen- 
eration are  the  new  manifestations  of  her  unchanged 
and  unchanging  interests  and  devotions.  Her  circle 
of  human  experience  and  human  feeling  has  only 
widened,  and  with  it  the  invisible  form  of  govern- 
ment so  long  attributed  to  her  has  become  distaste- 
ful, because  furtive  and  therefore  essentially  un- 
womanly. She  is  a  freer  being,  capable  of  doing 
more  and  being  more. '  *  Give  her  of  the  fruits  of  her 
hands;  and  let  her  own  works  praise  her  in  the 
gates." 


Women  and  Democracy 

BY  EMILY  JAMES  PUTNAM 

Associate  in  History  in  Barnard  College 

THE  natural  terrors  roused  by  such  a  title  as 
that  given  to  my  modest  reflections  on  this 
stirring  occasion  may,  I  think,  be  largely  set  at  rest 
at  the  outset  when  I  say  that  I  do  not  pretend  to 
understand  either  democracy  or  women,  that  I  re- 
gard both  as  necessary  evils,  and  that  my  intention 
is  merely  to  ask  you  to  notice  two  specific  ways  in 
which  the  two  are  egging  each  other  on,  with  the 
result — to  my  mind — that  educated  women  to-day 
have  as  great  a  responsibility  resting  on  them  as 
any  class  you  could  pick  out. 

When  we  speak  of  women  and  democracy  it  is 
not  the  first  term  only  that  it  is  hard  to  get  a  sharp, 
clear  portrait  of.  Not  only  woman  but  democracy 
also  is  varium  et  mutabile  semper.  We  don't  generally 
nowadays  mean  by  democracy,  I  think,  a  specific 
form  of  government ;  we  mean  a  new  way  of  look- 
ing at  mankind  and  the  social  relations,  which  some 
of  us  grasp  by  one  handle  and  some  by  another, 
so  that  we  often  talk  and  work  at  cross-purposes. 
Yet  we  have  a  common  concept  that  differentiates 
us  from  the  ancients  with  their  aristocratic  demo- 
cracies, and  from  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 


110     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

rights  of  man,  and  from  the  nineteenth  century  with 
its  laissez-faire  and  philanthropy.  As  I  was  feeling 
round  for  an  expression  of  this  new  concept  suffi- 
ciently stable  for  the  purposes  of  this  discussion,  my 
friend  Professor  Robinson  of  Columbia,  with  whom 
I  was  talking  it  over,  used  an  illustration  which  I 
thought  would  serve  excellently,  and  which,  with 
his  kind  permission,  I  now  offer  to  you. 

Not  only  the  botanists  but  any  one  taking  a  walk 
up  a  New  Hampshire  hill  notices  that  on  the  bald 
stony  top  various  mosses  grow  and  flourish.  They 
positively  like  the  bleak  environment  which  nothing 
else  likes.  They  don't  grow  down  in  the  fat  mead- 
ows ;  they  thrive  and  perpetuate  themselves  on  the 
bare  rock.  Now  up  to  our  Ume  there  has  been  a  sort 
of  feeling  that  the  human  species  was  naturally  dis- 
tributed in  highly  differentiated  groups ;  not  only  a 
feeling  that  the  Eskimo  and  the  Hottentot  are  really 
and  radically  different  from  us,  but  also  a  feeling  so 
deeply  seated  in  the  subconscious,  or  whatever  it 
is  that  runs  us,  that  reasoning  can  only  remove  it 
for  a  little  while  at  a  time,  that  there  is  a  real  natural 
fitness  in  the  fact  that  a  certain  fifty  women  are  driv- 
ing in  limousines  on  Fifth  Avenue  while  a  certain 
other  fifty  are  at  work  in  Macy's  basement.  The 
anthropologists,  I  need  hardly  remind  you,  have 
been  making  hay  of  the  first  of  these  notions.  They 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       111 

tell  us  that  the  human  mind,  wherever  found,  is  in- 
credibly uniform  in  its  general  action,  though  capa- 
ble of  infinite  individual  variation.  They  tell  us  that 
they  've  caught  Eskimo  babies  and  planted  them  in 
New  England  villages,  whereupon  they '  ve  grown  up 
not  into  Eskimos  but  into  New  Englanders.  They 
tell  us  that  as  far  as  history  goes  we  can't  prove  any 
actual  increase  in  human  intelligence.  We  have  piled 
up  a  culture  under  which  we  stagger,  but  our  natu- 
ral faculties,  speaking  of  the  race  as  a  whole,  are 
where  they  were.  We  can't  transmit  to  our  offspring 
the  ability  to  drive  a  motor-car,  and  on  the  other 
hand  the  offspring  of  the  Zulu  can  readily  learn  to 
drive  it  to  perfection.  Thomas  Hardy  the  novelist 
is  a  good  deal  of  a  sociologist,  and  he  has  a  way  of 
lighting  up  these  subjects  with  a  flashing  sentence. 
Glancing  at  one  of  his  novels  the  other  day,  I  found 
this  doctrine  in  a  nutshell.  One  of  the  characters  of 
the  novel  was  passing  through  London  after  the 
season  was  over.  As  he  walked  down  Pall  Mall,  the 
main  difference  he  noted,  says  Hardy,  was  that  in- 
stead of  being  full  of  clubmen  rubicund  with  alcohol, 
the  street  was  full  of  house-painters  pallid  with  white 
lead. 

Now  if  democracy  consists  in  seeing  the  accidental 
character  in  these  differences  of  complexion,  if  it 
leads  us  on,  in  the  light  of  Professor  Boas' s  conclu- 


112     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

sions,  to  see  as  irrelevant  differences  of  complexion  of 
much  longer  standing,  if  it  discredits  the  good  old 
simple  inferences  from  skull-measurement  on  which 
my  own  youth  was  nurtured,  where  does  it  leave  us 
in  regard  to  what  we  call  feminism? 

By  feminism  we  mean  something  like  this,  do  we 
not?  Granting  that  the  human  race  as  a  whole  could 
be  a  good  deal  better  off  in  several  specific  ways,  the 
plight  of  women  is  susceptible  of  improvement  in 
even  more  ways  than  the  plight  of  men.  Take  men 
where  you  will,  in  Paris  or  in  Greenland,  in  motors 
or  afoot,  in  top-hats  or  naked,  in  monasteries  or  in 
Gay  Street,  you  will  hardly  find  one  who  would 
care  to  be  the  female  of  his  species,  whatever  his 
species  happens  to  be.  I  do  not  say  that  a  starving 
tramp  might  not  be  willing  to  exchange  with  the 
Queen  of  England ;  I  merely  say  that  in  general  no 
man  would  be  willing  to  be  his  own  wife.  This  re- 
luctance, I  think,  rests  in  the  main  on  three  grounds : 
the  man's  sense  in  the  first  place  of  owning  a  more 
serviceable  physique ;  of  having,  in  the  second  place, 
a  sounder  economic  position  ;  and,  in  the  third  place, 
of  having  greater  emotional  stability.  These  seem 
to  me  to  be,  roughly,  the  most  important  respects 
in  which  men  have  got  ahead  of  women  as  repre- 
sentatives of  the  human  species,  and  the  kind  of 
feminism  that  I  profess  aspires  to  advance  women 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       113 

on  all  these  lines.  It  is  here  that  the  new  democracy 
touches  the  special  problems  of  women;  with  its 
growing  insistence  on  the  uniformity  of  human  ca- 
pacity and  on  the  possibility  of  infinite  adaptation  of 
the  individual,  it  opens  from  day  to  day  a  brighter 
prospect  that  women  can  to  some  extent  change 
their  spots. 

I  imagine  it  is  not  necessary  to  argue  these  points 
with  an  audience  like  this.  Many  of  you  are  doubt- 
less engaged  in  more  active  attempts  to  understand 
the  conditions  and  to  correct  them  than  I  have  ever 
made.  Under  the  first  head  I  should  like  to  say 
merely  this :  it  seems  evident  that  it  is  physiology 
that  is  hard  on  women  rather  than  society,  except 
in  so  far  as  society  has  reinforced  and  exaggerated 
the  ukases  of  physiology,  and  it  is  surprising  that 
women  in  general  are  not  more  keen  to  find  where 
the  limits  of  the  unalterable  lie.  I  have  personally 
the  greatest  curiosity  to  see  what  society  could  do  if 
it  set  itself  to  minimize  women's  sex  idiosyncrasies 
instead  of  aggravating  them.  If  I  might  have  my 
way,  all  girls  would  be  trained  to  be  manly.  They 
would  be  stripped  of  their  hampering  dress,  which 
is  in  itself  the  badge  of  physical  incompetence.  They 
would  be  practiced  in  dangerous  sports,  where  life 
and  limb  depend  on  nervous  control ;  public  opinion 
would  require  of  them  the  same  standard  of  phys- 


114     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ical  courage  as  it  requires  of  boys ;  they  would  not 
be  allowed  to  cry  when  they  are  hurt ;  the  schools 
would  have  courses  in  not  being  afraid  of  things, 
beginning  with  mice  and  progressing  through  men- 
under-the-bed  to  fire-arms;  they  would  learn  the 
ordinary  arts  of  self-defense,  and,  in  view  of  their 
special  liability  to  attack,  would  supplement  these 
with  the  open  carriage  of  weapons  when  circum- 
stances rendered  it  advisable.  It  is  my  belief  that 
the  new  habit  of  mind  begotten  by  such  changes  as 
these  would  work  farther  than  we  can  easily  imagine. 
The  mere  fact  of  the  absurdity  of  our  clothes  goes 
far  to  disqualify  us  as  serious  persons.  If  I  were  a 
woman  working  in  a  cannery,  I  don't  think  it  would 
be  to  the  high-heeled  class  in  the  commonwealth 
that  I  should  look  for  just  and  effective  opinions  on 
social  hygiene.  And  with  the  high  heel  I  should 
like  to  see  go  the  idea  many  women  seem  to  hold 
who  should  know  better,  that  war,  irrespective  of  the 
motive  for  which  it  is  waged,  is  a  new  form  of  self- 
indulgence  that  men  have  invented  for  themselves, 
and  of  which  women  are  the  chief  victims.  So  far 
am  I  from  sympathy  with  this  strange  view  of  war 
that  I  hope  if  it  should  ever  become  necessary,  which 
God  forbid,  to  protect  this  country  by  arms  against 
a  military  and  despotic  culture,  we  shall  see  battal- 
ions of  strong  and  courageous  and  disciplined  young 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       115 

women  as  ready  and  as  fit  as  their  brothers  to  defend 
the  right. 

As  to  the  second  respect  in  which  the  position 
of  women  is  capable  of  very  great  and  far-reaching 
improvement, — I  mean  the  question  of  economic 
independence, — there  is  certainly  no  need  to  enlarge 
on  that  to  an  audience  of  college  women,  for  next 
to  the  industrial  class,  they  can,  I  fancy,  show  the 
largest  percentage  of  self-support.  I  shall  assume 
that  you  agree  with  me  in  believing  that  the  social 
and  political  problems  of  women  would  be  solved 
automatically  if  the  women  of  the  middle  and  upper 
classes  had  the  courage  to  solve  the  economic  prob- 
lem for  themselves.  We  will  lay  it  down,  therefore, 
that  the  girls  of  these  classes  should  be  brought 
up  as  regularly  as  their  brothers  to  the  practice  of 
trades  and  professions,  and  we  would  have  them 
continue  those  trades  and  professions  after  marriage. 
The  shift  of  public  opinion  on  the  question  of  teacher- 
mothers  in  the  last  year  or  two  shows  that  this  can 
be  done  more  readily  than  some  persons  imagine. 
It  would  probably  modify  considerably  the  current 
notion  of  the  home,  making  it  more  flexible,  less 
conventional,  more  nearly  what  each  individual  pair 
wants  than  what  society  thrusts  upon  everybody; 
and  that,  in  my  judgment,  would  be  all  to  the  good. 
It  seems  clear  that  to  be  strong  and  independent, 


116     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

to  be  able  to  carry  the  family  if  the  man  should  be 
laid  up,  as  she  must  do  when  he  is,  to  be  really  her 
husband's  partner,  to  possess  the  sense  of  the  value 
of  money  that  comes  only  from  earning  it,  and  the 
sense  of  its  unimportance  in  comparison  with  other 
values  which  comes  only  with  the  knowledge  that 
more  can  be  earned  if  need  be, — in  a  word,  to  be 
a  free-footed  human  being,  would  be,  for  a  woman, 
to  eliminate  a  very  high  percentage  of  the  causes  of 
unhappiness  in  marriage.  But  this  ideal  has  to  be 
reached  by  individual  effort.  The  final  problem  of 
making  good  is  a  question  of  character.  Each  woman 
must  finally  achieve  it  for  herself,  as  each  man  must. 
And  my  reason  for  mentioning  so  obvious  a  fact  is 
the  misgiving  I  feel  at  seeing  so  many  women  bark- 
ing up  another  tree  altogether  and  substituting  for 
the  vital  ultimate  aim  some  proximate  formal  one, 
the  pursuit  of  which  is  less  lonely  and  calls  for  no 
such  girding  of  the  loins. 

It  is  harder  to  describe  the  third  respect  in  which 
it  looks  as  though  men  met  life  more  successfully 
than  women.  It  lies  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
finest  quality  of  women,  their  noblest  function,  their 
purest  value  to  the  world,  and  must  therefore  be 
touched  with  the  finest  discrimination.  Sometimes 
I  feel  inclined  to  call  it  plumply ,  as  Sienkiewicz  does, 
**  the  superior  recuperative  power  of  the  masculine 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       117 

heart,"  but  that  makes  it  look  a  good  deal  like  an 
inferiority.  Familiar  quotation  deals  with  it  more 
satisfactorily  by  declaring  that  while  ' '  love  is  of 
man's  life  a  thing  apart,  't  is  woman's  whole  exist- 
ence." And  while  we  are  still  under  the  heading  of 
the  explicit,  we  are  able  to  call  Henry  James  as  a 
witness,  who  is  not  always  eligible  as  an  example 
of  that  method.  Mr.  James  has  a  feminist  creed  of 
his  own,  which  he  recommends  to  the  propagan- 
dists while  considering  the  case  of  George  Sand, 
whose  ''abiding  value,"  he  says,  ''will  probably  be 
in  her  having  given  her  sex,  for  its  new  evolution 
and  transformation,  the  real  standard  and  measure 
of  change.  This  evolution  and  this  transformation 
are  all  round  us  unmistakable;  the  change  is  in 
the  air;  women  are  turned  more  and  more  to  look- 
ing at  life  as  men  look  at  it  and  to  getting  from  it 
what  men  get."  And  he  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  about 
the  exact  nature  of  what  Madame  Sand  got  from 
life  that  women  do  not  usually  get, — she  made 
the  emotions  feed  her  talent,  instead  of  crowding  it 
out. 

With  her  free  experience  and  her  free  use  of 
it,  her  literary  style,  her  love  of  ideas  and  ques- 
tions, of  science  and  philosophy,  her  comradeship, 
her  boundless  tolerance,  her  intellectual  patience, 
her  personal  good  humor  and  perpetual  tobacco  (she 


118     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

smoked  long  before  women  at  large  felt  the  cruel 
obligation),  with  all  these  things  and  many  I  don't 
mention  she  had  more  of  the  inward  and  outward 
of  the  other  sex  than  of  her  own.  She  had  above 
all  the  mark  that  .  .  .  the  history  of  her  personal 
passions  reads  singularly  like  a  chronicle  of  the  rav- 
ages of  some  male  celebrity.  .  .  .  Her  fashion  was 
quite  her  own  of  extracting  from  this  sort  of  expe- 
rience all  that  it  had  to  give  her  and  being  withal 
only  the  more  just  and  bright  and  true,  the  more 
sane  and  superior,  improved  and  improving.  .  .  . 
It  is  just  possible  indeed  that  the  moral  idea  was  the 
real  mainspring  of  her  course — I  mean  the  sense 
of  the  duty  of  avenging  on  the  unscrupulous  race  of 
men  their  immemorial  selfish  success  with  the  plas- 
tic race  of  women.  Did  she  wish  above  all  to  turn 
the  tables — to  show  how  the  sex  that  had  always 
ground  the  other  in  the  volitional  mill  was  on  occa- 
sion capable  of  being  ground?" 

This,  then,  is  the  way  the  matter  presents  itself 
to  various  men,  all  profoundly  interested  in  differ- 
ent aspects  of  the  emotional  life,  and  all  knowing 
by  experience  how  it  feels  to  be  a  creative  artist. 
It  may,  however,  perhaps  be  more  prudently  ap- 
proached if  we  first  advance  the  proposition  that 
the  feminine  point  of  view  is  invaluable  to  society 
because  women  more  than  men  tend  to  criticize  life 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       119 

in  terms  of  happiness,  and  not  necessarily  their  own 
happiness.  Of  course  there  have  always  been  heart- 
less, ambitious,  and  fanatical  women  ;  and  there  are 
an  increasing  number  of  men  who  are  as  sensitive  as 
women  to  the  need  for  the  happiness  of  people  im- 
mediately about  them  and  of  society  at  large.  But, 
with  these  abatements,  most  people  are  pretty  cer- 
tain to  admit  by  their  actions  if  they  will  not  in 
words,  that  what  a  woman  usually  strikes  for  as  the 
kernel  of  a  problem  is  its  bearing  on  the  happiness 
of  all  concerned.  It  is  a  commonplace  that  a  man 
who  has  to  announce  money  losses  to  a  woman  de- 
pendent on  him  is  often  astounded  by  finding  that 
except  by  way  of  sympathy  for  his  damaged  self- 
respect,  she  is  not  downcast  in  the  least.  She  is  as 
likely  as  not  to  say,  "But,  my  dear,  we  shall  be  just 
as  happy  in  a  smaller  house."  To  the  man  this 
remark  seems  either  idiotic  or  a  pose.  He  is  think- 
ing of  the  external  facts  of  failure ;  he  would  rather 
be  successful  than  happy.  Nevertheless,  this  fem- 
inine habit  of  mind  is  what  makes  a  man  seek  a 
woman  for  confidante  when  he  is  on  the  brink  of 
(for  instance)  giving  up  a  lucrative  job  for  reasons 
too  psychic  to  get  a  patient  hearing  in  the  world 
of  men.  It  is  sound  and  humane,  and  the  world  at 
large  is  beginning  to  adopt  it  as  the  true  basis  of 
social  and  economic  conceptions.  Now  the  corner- 


120     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

stone  of  happiness  as  women  see  it  is  love, — all 
sorts  of  love, — and  here  again  they  save  the  race 
by  being  gloriously  right.  You  will  foresee  that  the 
next  sentence  must  begin  with  **but." 

But  the  inevitable  limitation  to  one's  enthusiasm 
for  this  beautiful  rightness  of  women  is  the  glim- 
mering of  a  notion  that  in  practice  they  carry  it  out 
with  a  sentimental  leakage,  an  absoluteness  of  aim, 
that  go  a  long  way  toward  holding  them  down  to  the 
second  rank  in  pretty  nearly  every  field  of  achieve- 
ment. We  may  note  that  the  theoretical  feminists 
are  divided  by  a  fundamental  question — is  wo- 
men's progress  to  be  in  the  direction  of  a  greater 
diiferentiation  between  the  sexes,  or  a  less?  Is  it  to 
be  primarily  emotional  with  a  basis  in  economics,  or 
primarily  economic  with  emotion  sparingly  used  as 
a  motive  power  under  government  supervision  ?  Are 
women  to  be  lovers  and  mothers  with  Ellen  Key,  or 
lesser  men  with  Olive  Schreiner?  The  first  set  of 
questions  is  eloquently  affirmed  by  the  women  of 
many  countries  of  continental  Europe.  The  ^'yes" 
to  the  second  set  is  part  of  the  birthright  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  (though  it  originated  in  France  among  the 
ideas  of  '89),  and  has  been  hitherto  the  mainspring 
in  England  and  America  of  feminist  agitation.  From 
John  Stuart  Mill  through  Frances  Power  Cobbe  to 
Mrs.  Oilman  this  view  has  been  triumphant.  It  rests 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       121 

on  the  theory  that  women  are  over-sexed,  that  mar- 
riage-plus-maternity should  not  be  regarded  as  the 
first  requirement  for  all  women  but  as  an  alterna- 
tive, the  other  course  being  ' '  some  form  of  construc- 
tive pursuit,  usually  industrial."  The  problem  of 
the  sexually  superfluous  woman,  which  almost  robs 
Ellen  Key  of  her  sleep,  does  not  greatly  trouble  these 
thinkers  ;  they  are  appeased  by  remembering  that 
industry  is  open  to  her.  Woman  in  constructive 
pursuits  must  up  to  date,  I  fear,  be  thought  of  as 
the  ^'lesser  man."  The  evidence  which  has  accu- 
mulated up  to  our  own  time  has  done  nothing  to  in- 
validate Plato's  famous  dictum  that  a  woman  can 
do  anything  a  man  can  do,  and  that  some  women 
can  do  things  better  than  some  men,  but  that  on  the 
whole  the  best  of  the  world's  work,  from  cooking  to 
sculpture,  has  been  done  by  men.  RosaBonheur  may 
be  trotted  out  as  often  as  her  own  horses,  and  the 
fact  will  remain  that  the  highest  creative  achieve- 
ments are  to  seek  among  women  to  a  degree  not  to 
be  explained  by  lack  of  opportunity  or  of  the  sym- 
pathy of  society.  This  admission  should,  I  think, 
be  made  without  reluctance,  since  it  is  not  so  im- 
portant as  it  sounds ;  for  even  a  good  second  place  is 
more  than  is  attainable  by  the  vast  majority  of  man- 
kind. Still,  something  should  be  done  about  it. 
Plato  believed  that  the  second-rateness  of  women 


122     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

was  due  simply  to  their  physical  inferiority,  and 
he  proposed  to  minimize  this  by  a  wiser  education 
that  should  train  them — body  and  mind  —  as  boys 
are  trained.  Emotionalism  was  not  so  striking  a  phe- 
nomenon in  Plato's  day  as  in  ours ;  even  histrionism 
was  not  primarily  an  emotional  art,  and  women  were 
not  permitted  to  practice  it.  Plato,  therefore,  though 
he  knew  the  Maenads  were  women,  could  hardly 
make  the  remark  which  every  observer  must  make 
to-day,  that  women  are  vessels  of  emotion,  and  that 
in  the  histrionic  arts,  where  emotionalism  goes  far 
to  replace  certain  qualities  essential  in  the  other  arts, 
they  have  reached  the  very  highest  levels.  This  fact 
at  first  sight  might  recommend  emotionalism  as  a 
means  to  art,  but  it  is  subject  to  two  qualifications: 
in  the  first  place  there  are  at  least  as  many  men  as 
women  on  these  levels,  and  in  the  second  place  the 
most  commanding  women  artists  have  had  other 
qualities  in  a  high  degree, — Mrs.  Siddons  her  stolid 
common-sense  and  Madame  Bernhardt  her  pure 
reason. 

The  case  of  the  arts  is  particularly  striking,  but 
we  can  make  the  same  observations  with  regard  to 
science,  affairs,  and  the  professions.  In  all  these  we 
see  women  doing  well  but  not  excelling.  This  we 
can  attribute  largely  but  not  exclusively  to  their  less 
robust  health,  since  among  men  we  sometimes  see 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       123 

the  dyspeptic,  the  tuberculous,  and  the  neurotic  at 
the  very  top.  A  friend  and  well-wisher  of  women 
should  therefore  be  eager  to  persuade  them  to  look 
into  their  emotional  states;  believing  that  if  they 
decided  it  would  be  well  to  subject  these  to  sterner 
control  and  to  limit  their  fields  of  action,  it  could 
be  done  without  damaging  other  interests.  Nobody 
would  consider  the  attempt  advisable  if  its  success 
were  to  be  inimical  to  that  preoccupation  with  hap- 
piness which  is  the  safeguard  of  the  race ;  but  it 
looks  certain  that  not  only  the  happiness  of  women 
themselves  but  the  happiness  of  those  they  love 
would  be  increased  if  all  other  interests  in  life  were 
not  merely  ancillary. 

Through  the  action  of  educated  women,  then,  I 
look  confidently  to  see  the  new  spirit  of  democracy 
test  the  conventional  in  every  direction,  with  the  re- 
sult of  making  women,  and  therefore  the  whole  race, 
very  much  healthier  and  happier  and  more  useful 
than  they  are  at  present.  But  I  said  there  were  two 
ways  in  which  college  women  have  a  special  oppor- 
tunity to  prove  the  worth  of  their  training,  and  the 
second  is  this.  One  of  the  fundamental  conceptions 
of  the  new  democracy  is  the  social  mind.  We  are  all 
aware  now  that  no  one  can  think  with  complete  in- 
dependence. We  must  think  with  our  group  a  large 
part  of  the  time,  yet  group- thinking  is  not  very 


124     VASSAR   COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

profitable  as  thinking.  Real  co-operation  is  done  by 
a  number  of  persons  who  have  wrestled  to  their 
conclusions  independently,  not  by  a  group  who  are 
ready  to  play  at  follow-my-leader  because  that  is  the 
easiest  way.  Now  it  must  be  patent  to  everybody 
that  women  at  this  stage  of  their  development  are 
even  more  at  the  mercy  of  the  group-mind  than  men. 
Their  habit  of  forming  little  clubs  to  do  this,  that, 
and  the  other  may  look  on  the  face  of  it  like  a  talent 
for  organization.  Analysis  proves  it  in  many  cases, 
I  am  afraid,  to  be  the  result  of  reluctance  to  stand 
alone.  Now,  if  there  is  one  thing  that  the  college  can 
teach  incomparably,  it  is  the  power  to  stand  alone, 
and  also  to  co-operate,  the  habit  of  thinking  out  one's 
opinions  for  one's  self,  and  then  of  joining  seriously, 
reasonably,  with  others  of  like  mind.  One  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  our  time  is  that  other  types  of  women, 
women  whose  ideas  have  been  formed  in  the  drollest 
ways,  are  being  shoveled  wholesale  into  contact  with 
larger  social  processes  and  stronger  social  personal- 
ities than  their  previous  experience  has  fitted  them 
to  stand  up  against.  They  are  swamped  by  the  so- 
cial mind.  There  is  something  profoundly  inspiring 
in  the  thought  of  what  Vassar  College  has  done  in 
the  direction  of  preventing  this  sort  of  calamity.  I 
am  greatly  honored  that  I  should  have  an  oppor- 
tunity on  this  impressive  occasion  of  saying  anew 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESSES       125 

how  thoroughly  I  believe  in  democracy  as  it  obtains 
in  the  women's  colleges,  and  in  their  enormous  in-, 
fluence  for  good. 


Invocation 

BY   HENRY   MITCHELL  MACCRACKEN 

Chancellor  Emeritus  of  JVew  York  University 

FATHER  of  Lights,  from  whom  every  good  gift 
Cometh  down !  As  Thou  hast  been  gracious  to 
this  college  in  the  fifty  years  that  are  gone,  with  like 
measure  grant  Thy  grace  in  the  half  century  that 
we  now  enter,  and  throughout  every  half  century  to 
come.  May  each  of  them  prove  a  good  day's  journey 
toward  the  ideal  of  our  world,  revealed  by  the  angels 
when  Christ  was  born  of  Mary :  "Glory  to  God  in 
the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  good  will  toward 
men."  Make  this  college  more  than  ever  a  laborer 
with  Christ,  helping  America  to  be  just,  and  good, 
and  truly  great;  helping  also  the  stricken  nations 
of  the  Old  World  with  the  help  of  the  Good  Samar- 
itan, seeking  to  bring  them  to  the  inn  of  peace,  of 
refreshment,  and  of  new  life.  Teach,  O  Spirit  of 
God,  all  the  teachers  of  Vassar.  Guide  her  trustees 
and  officers,  and  especially  the  young  man  now  to 
be  inaugurated  as  her  president.  Bless  him  with  the 
blessing  which  was  asked  of  old  by  the  patriarch 
for  his  son  Joseph,  "the  blessing  of  the  God  of  thy 
fathers  who  shall  help  thee  even  unto  the  utmost 
bound  of  the  everlasting  hills."  We  Hft  up  our  eyes 


130     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

unto  the  hills,  from  whence  cometh  our  help.  Our 
help  cometh  from  the  Lord,  who  made  heaven  and 
earth.  Amen. 


The  Inaugural  Addresses 
The  Mystery  of  the  Mind's  Desire 

BY  JOHN   H.   FINLEY 

President  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  JVew  York 
and  Commissioner  of  Education 

WHEN  Ulysses,  by  the  favor  of  the  goddess 
Athena,  after  his  years  of  wandering,  was 
cast  upon  the  banks  of  the  river  near  his  own  land, 
and  beheld,  as  he  waked  from  his  first  sleep,  the 
princess  Nausicaa  at  play  with  her  maidens,  not 
knowing  whether  she  was  a  daughter  of  Zeus  or 
one  of  the  daughters  of  men,  he  spoke  in  awe  of 
her  wondrous  beauty,  and  then,  pausing,  said  in 
those  most  beautiful  lines  of  all  the  "Odyssey:" 
' '  Yet  once  in  Delos  I  saw  as  goodly  a  thing, — I  saw 
a  young  sapling  of  a  palm  tree  springing  by  an  altar 
to  Apollo," — an  altar  to  the  god  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  oracles,  to  the  mystery  that  was  ever  closely, 
consciously  about  the  Greek  in  those  younger  days 
of  the  world. 

Were  that  old  world-wanderer,  crossing  the  seas, 
which  were  in  his  time  the  baths  of  the  Western 
stars  only,  to  be  cast  upon  the  banks  of  this  river 
opposite  the  highlands,  here,  where  the  fresh  and 


132     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

salt  waters  once  met  (for  this  was  once  the  farthest 
coast  of  the  ocean),  and  were  he,  washing  away  the 
brine  from  his  body  in  the  sweet  waters  of  the  hills, 
to  look  upon  this  campus,  he  would  find  here  all 
three  of  these  most  goodly  things :  first,  the  young 
college  women  of  whom  Nausicaa  (whose  form 
should  be  first  in  the  Vassar  ' '  fabric  ages  old  " ) 
was  prototype,  who,  though  as  cultured  as  a  prin- 
cess, glorified  every  labor  even  to  the  washing  of 
raiment  and  the  driving  of  mules,  and  kept  herself 
young  through  play;  second,  the  wondrous  trees, 
more  beautiful  than  the  palm,  which  are  the  seasons' 
recurring  symbols  of  birth,  death,  and  resurrection ; 
and  third,  the  altar,  this  great  collection  of  halls  and 
laboratories  and  libraries,  where  offering  is  made  by 
the  daughters  of  Athena  to  the  remoter  mysteries. 
I  congratulate  you,  my  young  friend,  of  such  lin- 
eage, both  natural  and  acquired,  that  with  such  brief 
wandering  you  have  come,  so  early  in  life,  to  the 
presidency  over  the  realm  of  these  three  most  goodly 
things  of  earth.  It  was  the  wimple,  or  veil,  of  one 
of  the  daughters  of  the  mythical  Father  of  Letters, 
conspiring  with  Athena,  that  bore  Ulysses  to  a  safe 
shore ;  and  certainly  it  has  been  the  wimple  of  the 
genius  of  this  place  conspiring  with  your  own  let- 
tered genius  that  has  brought  you  to  its  guidance. 
May  Vassar  be  as  kind  to  you  as  Nausicaa  was  to 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       133 

Ulysses, — she  who  said  to  her  companions  :  "We 
must  kindly  entreat  him,  for  all  strangers  and  beg- 
gars [to  which  category  all  college  presidents  be- 
long] are  from  Zeus." 

You  have  come  to  preside  in  a  place  where  the 
supreme  mystery  of  life  (aside  from  the  mystery 
of  mere  being,  of  being  born  and  of  dying)  has  ex- 
pression— the  mystery  of  the  mind's  desire. 

There  are  countless  other  mysteries  which  should 
make  our  days,  from  the  reading  of  the  morning 
paper  to  the  taking  off  of  our  shoes  at  night,  like  jour- 
neys through  a  magician's  palace. 

There  is  a  mystery  upon  the  fields,  which,  with 
the  help  of  the  farmer,  performs,  in  a  season,  what 
the  Vegetable  Kingdom  could  not,  unaided,  accom- 
plish short  of  eons,  if  at  all.  It  was  by  this  mystery 
that  Cain  and  Abel  were  awed.  Indeed,  the  very  first 
recorded  act  of  the  sons  of  Adam  is  that  they  made 
offerings  (upon  primitive  altars,  as  we  imagine)  of 
the  fruits  of  the  earth's  first  cultures. 

And  one  cannot  refrain  from  observing,  in  pass- 
ing, that  though  there  was  room  under  the  sun  of 
the  wide  sky  for  the  altars  of  both  cultures,  that  of 
Cain  and  that  of  Abel,  nevertheless  the  first  of  the 
millions  of  inter-cultural  murders  was  done. 

It  is  not  a  month  since  I  saw  the  fruits  of  these 
same  cultures  of  the  fields  and  flocks  exhibited  at 


134     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

a  state  fair,  with  the  flames  of  man's  approving  rib- 
bons upon  them.  But  there  seemed  no  consciousness 
of  the  mystery  which  had  brooded  over  the  fields  and 
barn  and  orchard  to  bring  these  miracles  to  pass. 

I  wanted  a  Virgil  to  pass  through  the  stalls  and  as 
he  sang  long  ago  in  his  ^'Georgics,"  without  ped- 
antry, of  cattle  and  sheep  and  horses  and  bees,  while 
**  Caesar  was  flashing  war's  thunderbolts  over  the 
depths  of  Euphrates,  and  dispensing  among  willing 
nations  a  conqueror's  law,  and  setting  his  foot  on 
the  road  to  the  sky,"  I  wanted  him  to  sing  again, 
and  with  greater  scientific  agricultural  knowledge, 
of  the  miracles  more  marvelous,  more  mighty,  than 
the  achievements  by  man  with  his  arms. 

I  wanted  Maeterlinck  with  his  poetical  science 
or  scientific  poesy  to  point  out  the  'incomparable 
spectacle  "  of  an  energy  rising  from  the  roots  to  the 
full  bloom  of  the  flower  in  the  light,  to  point  to  the 
* '  prodigious  example  of  insubmission,  courage,  per- 
severance, and  ingenuity"  shown  by  the  plainest 
plant  in  perpetuating  its  species,  and  by  the  exqui- 
site orchid  in  bringing  the  insect  to  carry  its  pollen 
for  it. 

I  wanted  Henri  Fabre,  who  died  day  before  yes- 
terday in  France,  him  whom  Hugo  named  the  * '  In- 
sects' Homer,"  and  whom  Maeterlinck  called  one 
of  the  profoundest  scholars  and  finest  poets  of  the 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       135 

century,  to  tell  them  how  the  cricket  chirps,  know- 
ing which,  one  might  know  the  universe. 

And  instead  of  the  horse-race,  I  wanted  Henri 
Bergson's  philosophical  pageant  to  be  shown :  the 
animal  taking  its  ' '  stand  on  the  plant, ' '  then  man 
following,  '^bestride  animality,"  and  then  **the 
whole  of  humanity,  in  space  and  time,  in  one  vast 
army  galloping, ' '  beside  and  before  and  behind  the 
individual,  *Mn  an  overwhelming  charge,  able  to 
beat  down  every  resistance  and  clear  the  most  for- 
midable obstacles,  perhaps  even  death." 

These  poets,  naturalists,  philosophers,  could  not, 
of  course,  have  been  heard  there,  because  of  the 
merry-go-round  and  the  hawkers,  but  here  they 
can  be  heard,  and  ultimately  every  farm  will  know 
through  such  places  as  this  of  the  glory,  not  that 
was  Greece,  but  that  is  in  the  very  fields  of  this 
state  (not  to  speak  of  the  glories  which  lie  beyond 
our  borders),  a  glory  of  the  fields  more  to  be  appre- 
ciated because  of  the  *' glory  that  was  Greece." 

There  is  a  mystery  of  the  atoms,  of  which  Lu- 
cretius sang  Considera  opera  atomorum  long  before 
another  and  a  greater  Teacher  bade  men  to  con- 
sider the  lilies  of  the  field,  and  ages  before  Gas- 
sendi  and  Newton  announced  the  modern  atomic 
theory, — a  mystery  before  which  an  old  Princeton 
professor  used  to  take  off  his  hat,  it  is  said,  when 


136     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

about  to  perform  an  experiment, — a  mystery  which 
makes  ill-smelling  chemical  laboratories  as  sweet  as 
cathedrals  filled  with  incense,  and  dissecting-rooms 
as  sacred  as  the  ground  on  which  the  ancient  harus- 
pex  divined  the  will  of  the  gods  by  examining  the 
entrails  of  animals. 

There  is  a  mystery  of  the  ether,  which  treasures 
every  vibration  and  enables  one  of  her  disciples,  the 
president  of  Dartmouth,  to  measure  the  pressure 
of  a  star's  light  that  has  been  traveling  years  to 
reach  the  earth  ;  another  to  feel  in  Canada  the  fall  of 
a  mass  of  rock  and  earth  on  a  mountain  side  in  the 
Pamir,  India ;  another  to  make  his  voice,  which  I 
heard  with  difficulty  while  sitting  in  the  car  beside 
him,  distinctly  audible  nearly  five  thousand  miles  to 
the  westward  and  without  wires ;  and  still  another, 
sitting  among  the  scrub-oaks  of  Long  Island,  to 
hear,  beneath  a  tree  of  radiate  threads  for  branches, 
and  to  reveal,  in  censored  speech,  what  is  spoken 
in  Berlin,  four  thousand  miles  to  the  eastward. 

There  is  a  mystery  of  the  hand,  which  meant 
at  first  only  a  ministry  and  a  craft,  that  has  come  to 
be  a  real  mystery,  a  mystery  that  touches  a  piece 
of  canvas  and  makes  it  a  Corot,  or  breaks  a  piece 
of  marble  and  makes  it  a  ' '  Nike, ' '  or  touches  a  few 
strings  and  makes  a  symphony,  or  sews  together 
bits  of  human  tissue  and  prolongs  life. 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       137 

There  are  many  objective  mysteries  in  these 
kingdoms  which  lie  about  the  mind.  And  no  curric- 
ulum is  uncultural  that  brings  a  mind  consciously, 
knowingly,  inquiringly,  courageously  into  the  pres- 
ence of  any  one  of  these,  however  '* practical"  the 
courses  by  which  it  is  led.  There  is,  after  all,  but 
the  one  objective  mystery;  for  as  there  are  "many 
faiths  and  one  God,"  so  are  there  many  mysteries, 
yet  but  one  Mystery.  The  many  are  but  as  trenches 
along  the  great  stretch  of  the  battle  front  marked  in 
red  for  those  afar  but  hid  by  smoke  and  fog  to  those 
near  by. 

On  the  contrary,  even  though  a  curriculum  be  as 
full  of  the  classics  as  that  of  the  scholar  of  whom  Sen- 
ator Hoar  tells  in  his  **  Reminiscences,"  the  Ph.D., 
who  having  read  Cicero  through  fifty  times  had  at 
last  found  that  while  necesse  est  was  used  indiffer- 
ently with  the  accusative  and  the  infinitive  or  with 
ut  and  the  subjunctive,  necesse  erat  was  used  only 
with  ut  and  the  subjunctive, — such  a  curriculum 
cannot  be  called  * '  cultural ' '  (a  word  for  which  our 
civilization  must  find  a  substitute  after  this  war  is 
over)  unless  it  bring  one  to  a  burning  bush  that  is 
not  consumed,  to  a  theorem  that  is  eternal,  (and 
what  joy  on  earth  can  be  greater  than  that  which 
a  Vassar  professor  has  recently  experienced  in  find- 
ing a  new  eternal  theorem  to  add  to  those  of  Euclid 


138     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

and  all  others  who  have  lived  on  the  edge  of  the 
mathematical  mysteries,  however  regretful  to  the 
student  of  unmathematical  mind) — lead  one  to  a 
burning  bush,  to  an  eternal  theorem,  or  even  to  the 
mystery  of  the  gnat,  for  as  Fabre  is  quoted  to  have 
said,  ''Human  knowledge  will  be  erased  from  the 
world  before  we  possess  the  last  word"  which  this 
infinitesimal  but  annoying  creature,  the  gnat,  ''has 
to  say  to  us." 

New  disciplines  may  come  into  our  curricula,  dis- 
ciplines which  I  have  called  "synthetic,"  after  the 
analogy  of  the  synthetic  substitutes  for  accustomed 
nutrients;  and  they  should  come  if  they  give  shorter, 
surer,  more  economical  entrance  to  the  mysteries. 

It  is  difficult  for  me  to  think  these  new,  substitute 
disciplines  as  efficient  as  the  old,  just  as  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  me  not  to  think  it  sacrilegious  to  use  olive  oil 
made  of  cotton-seed  for  the  anointing  of  kings  and 
priests,  though  I  realize  that  it  is  only  because  the 
association  between  cotton-seed  olive  oil  and  corona- 
tion and  consecration  has  not  yet  been  established. 

But  the  supreme  mystery  is,  after  all,  not  the  sum 
of  all  these  objective  mysteries  toward  which  our 
courses  run,  with  examinations.  Regents'  counts,  or 
Carnegie  units  along  the  way  and  degrees  at  the 
end.  The  mystery  which  we  here  celebrate  is  the 
subjective  one,  the  mystery  of  the  mind's  own  de- 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       139 

sire, — the  mystery  of  the  finite  mind  insatiably 
longing  to  know  infinitely,  of  the  mind  that  endures 
the  hardship  or  horror  of  laboratory  or  philosophi- 
cal trench  for  the  sake  of  the  conquest  of  the  objec- 
tive mystery,  whether  it  be  in  science  or  letters, 
philosophy  or  art,  in  Arras  or  in  Verdun. 

Through  countless  millions  of  years  the  ''will  to 
live"  has  struggled  blindly,  it  has  seemed,  from 
shape  to  shape  till  the  ' '  will  to  know ' '  in  man's  mo- 
ment of  existence  has  risen  with  a  light  in  its  hand 
to  lead  on  the  ' '  will  to  live ' '  into  higher  ranges  of 
life, — into  another  kingdom. 

And  here  has  the  mind  of  woman  added  its  desire 
to  man's :  to  pursue  that  which  mind  alone  makes 
mystery,  and  through  which  mind,  in  recovering  it 
from  mystery,  has  food  for  its  own  immortality. 

To  discuss  the  source  and  reach  of  this  desire,  I 
should  have  to  steer  between  the  Scylla  of  the  psy- 
chological laboratory  and  the  Charybdis  of  the  theo- 
logical seminary ;  and  I  cannot  put  you  in  such  peril 
of  my  seamanship.  I  can  do  little  more  than  to  put 
into  your  ears  (against  the  tempting  calls  of  both 
those  who  sing  of  ' '  culture ' '  and  those  who  extol 
practicality)  this  word  :  that  the  whole  of  education 
is  to  carry  the  mind's  desire,  which  is  earth's  dear- 
est hope  and  highest  mystery,  into  eager  touch  with 
some  mystery  of  the  kingdoms  of  eternal  truth. 


140     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

I  bring  you  as  proem  for  this  glorious  day  of  the 
mind,  —  which  like  yesterday  morning's  sky  is 
always  at  dawn,  always  showing  colors  which  are 
the  colors  of  this  college,  the  rose  of  the  coming  sun 
against  the  gray  of  the  day  before  woman  came  upon 
earth,  — I  bring  you  as  preface  to  all  of  which  this 
day  is  to  be  the  unforgotten  dawn,  greeting  of  that 
mystical  body  in  which  all  the  institutions  of  this 
state,  established  to  teach  and  train  the  mind,  to 
guide  and  stir  its  desire,  have  membership. 

And  it  has  a  better,  if  less  concise,  word  than 
Emerson's  saying:  *'To  make  the  wise  man  the 
state  exists."  This  gives  but  a  static  prospect,  and 
as  one  has  said, '  *  A  static  culture  will  never  be  real- 
ized." ''We  have  struck  our  camp  forever,  and 
we  are  out  upon  the  road."  The  state  exists — not 
alone  to  make  the  man  wise,  but  to  give  the  mind 
freedom  and  desire  to  live  uncontentedly  and  close 
to  the  mysteries  of  infinite  existence.  It  is  this  urge, 
this  insatiable  longing,  that  gives  us  confidence  in 
the  genius  of  the  race  to  lift  the  individual,  and  in 
the  power  of  the  trained,  inspired  individual  to  lift 
the  race. 


The  Scholar  and  the  Pedant 

BY  GEORGE  LYMAN  KITTREDGE 

Professor  of  English  in  Harvard  University 

SUCH  inaugural  ceremonies  as  these  remind  one, 
not  unpleasantly,  of  the  old-fashioned  ordina- 
tion, with  its  right  hand  of  fellowship,  with  its  charge 
to  the  minister  (who  is  bidden  to  reflect  that  he  has 
plenty  of  hard  work  before  him,  as  well  as  many 
brilliant  opportunities,  and  behind  him  a  line  of 
spiritual  ancestors  whom  he  will  not  find  it  easy  to 
emulate),  and  finally,  with  its  charge  to  the  people, 
always,  it  seems,  delivered  with  especial  unction, 
perhaps  because  the  speaker  is  addressing  an  as- 
sembly to  w  hom  he  is  not  ecclesiastically  responsi- 
ble. Somehow,  —  though  why  it  would  be  difficult 
to  guess,  for  nobody  has  even  hinted  that  I  have 
any  such  office, — somehow,  I  have  come  to  feel  as 
if  there  rested  upon  me  the  burden  of  this  charge 
to  the  people,  or  (to  put  it  academically)  to  the  grad- 
uates, for  they,  after  all,  are  an  American  college 
president's  parishioners,  and  though  his  parish,  like 
that  of  Chaucer's  parson,  is  'Svide,  with  houses  far 
asunder,"  he  is  expected  to  visit  them  all,  '^upon 
his  feet,  and  in  his  hand  a  staff*. ' '  Let  us  not  force 
the  analogy,  or  drain  the  figure  to  the  dregs,  for  it 
is  apt  enough  without  forcing.  It  will  serve,  at  all 


142     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

events,  to  introduce  what  I  have  to  say  on  this  au- 
spicious occasion.  And  I  must  beg  you,  O  people, 
to  take  my  exhortations  kindly,  even  if  they  do 
not  tickle  your  self-complacency.  Fidelia  vulnera 
amantis.  '* Faithful,"  saith  the  wise  man,  '*are  the 
wounds  of  a  friend." 

I  shall  not  dull  your  ears  and  soothe  your  minds 
to  slumber  with  the  droning  commonplaces  that  you 
are  awaiting  so  patiently.  Those  you  must  take  for 
granted.  Of  course  you  mean  to  be  loyal,  — loyal  to 
the  pitch  of  enthusiasm,  of  fanaticism  if  need  be, 
— loyal  with  tongue  and  pen  and  hand  and  purse, 
— loyal  to  your  college  and  loyal  to  the  young  and 
vigorous  scholar  to  whose  keeping  its  name  and  for- 
tunes have  been  so  confidently  entrusted.  None  of 
you,  surely,  requires  to  be  warned  not  to  slip  into 
the  category  of  discontented  and  carping  alumnae, 
— those  irresponsible  and  indolent  reviewers,  prun- 
ers  of  our  periods,  worms  in  our  bud,  flies  in  our 
ointment,  litde  foxes  that  spoil  our  vines.  You  can- 
not all  be  always  satisfied ;  but  you  are  resolved,  I 
feel  certain,  to  be  angry  and  sin  not,  to  seek  peace 
and  ensue  it,  for  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  that 

'"''He  who  would  please  all  men  each  way, 
And  not  himself  offend,  — 
He  may  begin  his  "work  to-day. 
But  God knoivs  when  he'^ll  end!'*'' 


THE   INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       143 

And  the  last  thing  that  you  look  forward  to  is  a 
spineless  and  molluscoid  administration. 

Let  me  shun,  then,  these  generalities,  which  are 
as  useless  for  you  to  hear  as  they  would  be  unbe- 
coming of  me  to  utter.  Let  me  come  directly  to  my 
subject,  much  discussed,  but  not  yet  exhausted, — 
a  subject  always  vital  in  an  educated  community, 
and  never  and  nowhere  more  in  need  of  clearing 
up  than  in  precisely  this  age  of  the  world  and  in 
the  minds  of  our  own  college  public.  My  theme  is 
' '  The  Scholar  and  the  Pedant, ' '  and  on  that  theme, 
if  time  allowed,  as  it  does  not,  I  could  contend,  in 
Hamlet's  phrase, ' '  until  my  eyelids  would  no  longer 
wag." 

Your  governing  board  has  taken  the  momentous 
step  of  calling  to  preside  over  your  college  a  man 
who  has  achieved  a  position  as  a  scholar  in  the 
most  exact  and  technical  sense  of  that  vaguely  mis- 
used term.  Other  qualifications  he  has,  no  doubt, 
but  these  do  not  now  concern  us.  The  thing  that  is 
of  immediate  interest  in  this  discussion  is  his  schol- 
arship, of  the  amount  and  quality  of  which  I  can 
speak  by  the  card,  since  it  lies  in  my  own  depart- 
ment, and,  to  a  considerable  extent,  in  a  period  to 
which  I  have  given  some  attention.  Further,  as  I 
am  credibly  informed,  this  exact  and  painstaking 
scholarship, — which  has  not  disdained  to  investi- 


144     VASSAR   COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

gate  certain  peculiarities  of  the  English  language 
and  English  metre  in  the  fifteenth  century  and  to 
apply  the  results  to  the  determination  of  the  Lyd- 
gate  canon, — this  exact  and  painstaking  scholar- 
ship has  actually  been  regarded  by  your  trustees 
and  their  advisers,  not  as  a  scruple  as  to  his  avail- 
ability, but  as  a  substantial  merit, — as  an  asset, 
if  you  will  pardon  the  term,  which  the  college  is 
glad  to  possess  and  proud  to  carry  on  its  books  at 
a  premium. 

I  am  anxious,  very  anxious,  not  to  be  misunder- 
stood by  you,  the  people  to  whom  I  am  delivering 
this  charge.  The  point  is,  not  that  your  president 
has  been  elected  for  his  scholarship  alone,  which 
would  have  been  an  absurdity,  but  that  his  learn- 
ing and  acquirements  in  this  kind  have  been  prop- 
erly regarded  in  the  sum  total  of  his  qualifications. 
Your  trustees  have  not  ignored  them  and  proceeded 
solely  upon  other  grounds.  Nor  have  they  declared 
that  they  wanted  him  in  spite  of  his  scholarship. 
They  have  taken  him  as  he  is,  Ph.D.  and  all,  and 
have  done  so  with  their  eyes  open,  knowing  well 
that  he  is  not  only  an  exact  scholar  himself,  but  that 
he  values  exact  scholarship  in  others;  that  he  is 
not  ashamed  of  his  knowledge  of  Middle  English 
linguistics,  nor  inclined  to  make  apologies  for  his 
acquaintance  with  a  large  body  of  minute  facts,  no 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       145 

single  one  of  which  would  save  a  man's  soul  or  add 
a  cubit  to  his  philosophical  stature. 

' '  The  Scholar  and  the  Pedant !  "  For  the  sake  of 
precision,  let  us  limit  our  scope — let  us  confine  our 
subject  within  the  bounds  of  literary  and  linguistic 
study. 

We  discover,  at  the  outset,  three  propositions, — 
never,  perhaps,  avowed  in  plain  terms,  but  pretty 
generally  assumed  by  those  who  desire  either  to  re- 
form us  scholars  or,  preferably,  to  abolish  us  alto- 
gether. These  three  propositions,  which  I  shall  take 
the  liberty  of  dragging  out  of  their  misty  skulking- 
holes  and  suspending  before  you  for  respectful  con- 
templation, are  the  following: 

First:  No  pedant  can  be  a  literary  critic,  that  is, 
an  appreciator  or  depredator  of  literature. 

Second :  No  literary  critic  can  be  a  pedant. 

Third:   Linguistic  men  (what  are  often  called 

philologists ' ' )  and  source-hunters  and  mediae- 
valists  are  all  pedants,  or,  if  not,  they  are  saved  so 
as  by  fire. 

Let  me  repeat  these  three  propositions  —  not  be- 
cause I  subscribe  to  them,  but  because  they  are  worth 
noting,  and  because  they  may  help  us,  somehow  or 
other,  as  we  proceed. 

First:  No  pedant  can  be  a  literary  critic. 

Second :  No  literary  critic  can  be  a  pedant. 


146     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Third :  Linguistic  men  and  source-hunters  and 
mediaevalists  are  all  pedantSjthatis, until  theyrepent. 

With  these  oracles  in  mind,  we  shall  endeavor  to 
learn  what  makes  a  pedant,  what  is  his  quiddity. 
Any  number  of  answers  will  spring,  unbidden,  to 
your  minds.  Here  are  a  few,  which  may  or  may  not 
have  occurred  to  you :  a  complete  list  would  show  as 
astonishing  a  variety  as  the  replies  which  the  anx- 
ious Knight,  in  "The  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,"  col- 
lected to  the  problem : ' '  What  women  most  desire. ' ' 
The  characteristic  of  a  pedant  is  a  plerophory 
of  cocksureness  combined  with  an  equipollent  im- 
patience of  contradiction."  If  that  sounds  porten- 
tous, it  is  at  all  events  sun-clear  in  meaning.  We 
may  condense  it,  perhaps,  into  *' intolerant  dogma- 
tism." It  is  a  promising  definition,  and  many  of  us 
may  feel  inclined  to  accept  it  without  demur.  But 
wait  a  moment!  Cannot  each  of  us  remember  at 
least  one  literary  critic  of  his  acquaintance  who  man- 
ifests both  cocksureness  and  impatience  of  contra- 
diction, and  that  too  with  much  violence  and  in  the 
superlative  degree?  Now,  ex  hypothesis  no  literary 
critic  can  be  a  pedant,  no  pedant  a  literary  critic. 
The  terms,  like  Shakspere  and  Bacon,  are  held  to 
be  mutually  exclusive,  no  less,  indeed,  than  incom- 
mensurable. This  must  give  us  pause;  and  the 
longer  we  pause,  the  more  uncertain  we  shall  be. 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       147 

For,  as  we  take  a  mental  census  of  the  persons  we 
know  who  fall  under  this  condemnation,  we  soon 
discover  that  the  class  of  intolerant  dogmatists  in- 
cludes many  men  and  women  of  many  trades  and 
occupations.  For  my  own  part,  I  have  met  with  this 
quality  in  a  large  number  of  business  men,  in  sev- 
eral lawyers,  in  not  a  few  physicians,  in  almost  all 
politicians,  and  in  a  good  sprinkling  of  gardeners, 
fishermen,  farmers,  dentists,  golfers,  and  minor 
poets.  Truly  we  have  not  yet  isolated  the  pedant's 
quiddity.  It  looks  rather  as  if  we  had  stumbled  upon 
one  of  the  traits  of  poor  weak  humanity  as  a  whole. 
A  second  answer  to  our  problem  is  ancient  and 
still  popular.  It  declares  that  "the  hall-mark  of  the 
pedant  is  an  affected  or  esoteric  jargon." 

"^  Babylonish  dialect^ 
Which  learned  pedants  much  affect!'*'' 

But  alas !  this  description,  if  it  was  ever  true,  ceased 
long  ago  to  be  of  any  value.  I  know  and  love  hosts 
of  alleged  pedants,  but  none  of  them  seems  to  have 
any  particular  fondness  for  inkhorn  words.  They 
use  technical  terms,  like  other  mortals,  when  they 
are  discussing  technical  subjects,  but  it  is  hard  to 
see  why  reduplication  or  Umlaut^  on  fitting  occa- 
sion employed,  is  any  more  pedantic  than  doivell  or 
dovetail  or  alveolar  process  or  laryngitis  or  volts  or 


148     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ohms  or  ontology  or  quadrilateral  or  scire  facias  or 
ad  damnum. 

Once  more  we  are  in  grave  danger  of  confusing 
the  pedant  (who,  as  everybody  admits,  gives  his 
whole  time  and  energy  to  linguistics,  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  the  tracing  of  sources)  with  the  liter- 
ary critic  (who,  as  we  have  seen,  is  never  a  pedant 
at  all).  Authentic^  striking  the  keynote,  impressionism, 
neo-classic,  romanticism,  atmosphere,  verisimilitude, 
insight, — what  are  they?  And  how  do  they  differ 
from  Umlaut  and  Ablaut  and  protasis  and  weak  de- 
clension? Except,  indeed,  that  they  are  less  precise, 
and  therefore  more  available  than  the  others  for 
the  purposes  of  pretentious  vagueness. 

Here  are  some  sentences  that  might  indeed  be 
called  pedantic.  I  have  made  them  up  as  examples. 

''A  good  Anlaut  is  half  the  battle." 

"  Auslaut  gut,  alles  gut." 

* '  It  is  the  little  u  and  i  Umlauts  of  life  that  make 
up  social  intercourse." 

Here,  too,  is  a  paragraph,  likewise  specially  pre- 
pared, that  we  should  charge  with  pedantry  if  we 
ran  across  it  (as  we  do  not)  in  a  romance  of  Mr. 
Jack  London's: 

''The  storm  grew  worse  and  worse,  and  still  the 
captain  shut  himself  up  in  the  cabin — drinking, 
always  drinking.  At  last,  in  the  gray  dawn,  he  stag- 


THE   INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       149 

gered  to  the  bridge.  He  was  as  excited  as  a  delibera- 
tive subjunctive.  His  visual  images  experienced  the 
West  Germanic  gemination.  His  basis  of  articula- 
tion was  an  aposiopesis,  and  his  legs  were  as  tangled 
as  an  anacoluthon  or  a  contaminated  construction." 
Such  discourse  as  that  would  assuredly  be  pedan- 
tic, but  nobody  speaks  or  writes  in  this  fashion  — 
at  least,  nobody  among  pedants.  As  for  the  literary 
critics,  I  am  not  so  sure.  Here  is  a  flower  of  rhetoric 
which  I  did  not  cultivate  myself.  I  culled  it  last  year 
from  a  serious  and  edifying  essay  in  a  highly  re- 
spectable magazine.  "The  elemental,  whether  in 
nature  or  human  life,  is  a  constant  factor  in  culture. 
Only  our  attitude  toward  it  changes  with  the  evolu- 
tion of  our  psychical  background.  What  we  bring 
to  nature  determines  its  realizable  values  for  us.  That 
makes  the  difference  between  modern  and  ancient 
art."  This  seems  both  fine  and  profound  until  we 
translate  it  into  untechnical  language,  and  then  we 
perceive,  to  our  mortification,  that,  except  for  the 
conclusion,  which  may  be  false,  it  is  a  stark  truism, 
masked  and  shrouded  in  pedantic  jargon.  "The 
changeless  facts  of  nature  and  life  are  changeless. 
But  our  feelings  about  them  do  change,  as  we  grow 
in  experience  and  understanding.  What  we  get  from 
nature  depends  on  how  we  feel  about  it.  That  is  the 
diflference  between  modern  and  ancient  art. "  Why, 


150     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  thing  reminds  me  of  a  dogma  I  once  heard  pro- 
nounced by  a  worthy  lecturer:  '^Infinite  omnipo- 
tence is  all-powerful." 

We  must  try  a  third  definition,  since  the  test  of 
vocabulary  has  left  us  in  the  lurch.  How  will  this 
one  do?  *' Narrowness  is  the  characteristic  vice  of 
the  true  pedant," — and  since,  of  course,  a  pedant 
is  all  vice,  that  amounts  to  saying,  *' Narrowness 
is  the  pedant's  quiddity." 

Here,  again,  there  is  trouble,  for  most  of  us  schol- 
ars who  are  attacked  for  pedantry  are  not  so  narrow 
as  our  tip-tilted  and  supercilious  assailants.  We  are 
willing,  nay,  eager,  that  these  assailants  should  live 
and  move  and  have  their  being.  We  wish  them  to 
do  their  work.  We  admire  them,  often  beyond  their 
merits,  and  value  the  results  which  they  achieve  in 
their  own  elected  province.  But  they  do  not  admire 
us.  They  are  not  willing  that  we  should  do  our  work 
in  our  own  elected  province.  They  would  burn  us  at 
the  stake  if  the  law  allowed,  or,  at  all  events,  they 
would  make  a  bonfire  of  our  collectanea  and  dance 
merrily  round  the  dying  embers  of  our  special  pub- 
lications. No, — narrowness  will  not  do  as  the  crite- 
rion of  the  pedant,  until  it  can  be  shown  that  breadth 
of  intellectual  sympathy  is  the  guiding  quality  of  the 
scholastic  snob. 

Thus  we  come  to  a  fourth  definition,  closely  allied 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       151 

to  that  which  we  have  j  ust  discarded : ' '  What  makes 
the  pedant  is  his  lack  of  discrimination  as  to  com- 
parative values. ' '  This  might  pass  muster  if  it  were 
properly  applied — to  a  plumber  I  know,  for  exam- 
ple, an  excellent  plumber,  who  cares  more  for  my 
money  than  for  the  cultivation  of  his  sensorium,  and 
more  for  the  cultivation  of  his  sensorium  than  for 
the  distinction  between  Wordsworth's  theory  of  na- 
ture and  Keats 's  attitude  towards  nature,  and  least 
of  all  for  the  saving  of  his  soul.  This  judgment,  to 
be  sure,  does  not  apply  to  all  plumbers,  any  more 
than  it  applies  to  all  pedants,  or  all  literary  critics. 
Again  we  are  dealing  with  a  failing  of  our  common 
humanity  —  not  peculiar  to  scholars,  less  true  of 
them,  indeed,  than  of  most  men.  Nor  do  we  seem 
able  to  discover  that  this  failing  is  particularly  ag- 
gravated by  attention  to  linguistics,  to  the  mediaeval 
period,  or  to  the  severer  side  of  literary  study. 

At  this  point  a  cautionary  remark  appears  to  be 
advisable.  It  is  tacitly  assumed  by  many  honest  and 
worthy  gentlemen  and  ladies,  that  every  scholar 
who  writes  a  paper  on  the  Tiefstufe,  or  the  final 
-e  in  Chaucer's  ''Troilus,"  or  the  metrical  oddi- 
ties of  Dan  John  Lydgate,  or  the  hiatus  in  French 
poetry,  or  the  authorship  of  "Piers  Plowman,"  re- 
gards the  particular  topic  which  occupies  him  at  the 
moment  as  of  greater  concern  to  the  world  than  any- 


152     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

thing  else  beneath  the  cope  of  heaven.  What  a  sin- 
gular assumption!  Such  preposterous  pedants  do,  no 
doubt,  exist,  just  as  there  are  long-haired  crushed 
tragedians,  and  inglorious  Spring  poets  who  should 
be  mute, — the  grasshoppers  of  Parnassus, — and 
vociferous  politicians  in  the  post-office  at  the  cross- 
roads, and  cubist  artists,  and  Baconian  cipherers, 
and  inventors  of  perpetual  motion  machines,  and 
literary  criticules  who  equate  their  casual  *'how- 
they-strike-me's"  with  the  laborious  exactitude  of 
Aristotle.  All  sorts  of  flies  sit  on  the  chariot- wheels 
of  progress  and  cry  without  ceasing, ' '  What  a  dust 
do  I  raise ! ' '  But  I  have  seldom  known  a  good  sound 
pedant  who  valued  his  own  small  discoveries  much 
higher  in  the  scheme  of  things  than  their  deserts. 
And,  if  so,  it  was  only  in  comparison  with  other 
similar  discoveries  that  he  over-rated  them.  ''An  ill- 
favored  thing,  sir,  but  mine  own! "  Surely  this  is 
a  harmless  partiality,  common  with  mothers  and 
fathers  and  lovers,  and  not  unheard-of  among  nov- 
elists and  poets. 

Of  course  the  chanticleer  who  fancies  that  his 
cock-a-doodle-do  causes  the  sunrise  is  a  pathetic 
noodle,  but  he  is  not  the  only  noodle  in  the  world, 
just  as  the  pedant  is  not  the  only  creature  who  is  a 
pedant !  Sometimes  I  fear  that  we  are  all  donkeys  to- 
gether— we  foolish  mortals  —  braying  dissonantly 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       153 

at  each  other  and  taking  our  hee-haws  for  the  ora- 
cles of  Apollo  —  shaking  our  ears  in  the  moonlight, 
and  interpreting  their  shifting  shadows  as  glimpses 
of  the  infinite. 

But  the  most  deluded  of  all  the  deluded — who 
is  he?  Why,  he  is  the  man  who  has  not  yet  learned 
the  lesson  of  Montaigne's  twenty-fourth  essay!  He 
is  the  man  who  imagines  that  pedantry,  or  freedom 
from  pedantry,  consists  or  inheres  in  the  subject 
that  one  investigates,  rather  than  in  the  nature  of 
the  investigator  himself, — who  supposes  that  a 
jejune  and  unimaginative  intellect  will  blossom  as 
the  rose  under  the  fertilizing  influence  of  lectures  on 
the  art  of  poetry,  or  that  a  rich  and  lively  mind  will 
wither  and  fade  under  the  blight  of  mediaevalism 
or  the  frosty  touch  of  linguistic  science. 

But  what  has  become  of  our  pedant?  Has  he 
escaped  in  the  scuflfle?  Sursum  corda!  Here  he  is 
at  last !  He  exists  in  all  professions,  in  every  walk 
of  life,  among  literary  critics  and  men  of  science  as 
well  as  among  students  of  language  and  the  devo- 
tees of  the  Middle  Ages.  And  now  I  will  define  him 
—  without  more  talk :  A  pedant  is  any  man  who  uses 
a  set  of  technical  terms  that  differ  from  mine. 

Test  this  definition  as  rigorously  as  you  will :  it 
will  stand  your  reagents.  Throw  it  how  you  may: 
it  will  always  come  down  like  a  caltrop,  with  its 


154     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

point  in  the  air.  Wheel  it  about  as  you  like :  it  will 
ever  pass  current,  like  the  three  legs  in  the  coat  of 
the  Isle  of  Man. 

And  now  that  I  have  defined  the  pedant,  the  temp- 
tation is  irresistible  to  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to 
tread  and  to  attempt  a  definition  of  a  snob.  A  snob, 
I  take  it,  is  a  person  who,  among  his  equals,  thinks 
that  he  belongs  to  a  privileged  class.  He  is  one  who 
regards  his  own  special  field  of  study  as  coincident 
in  area  with  the  Elysian  fields,  and  who  scorns  all 
ploughmen  who  are  not  engaged  in  cultivating  his 
own  particular  half-acre.  In  a  word,  he  is  a  more 
or  less  elegant  bigot,  who  makes  trouble  for  his 
broader-minded  fellow-citizens  in  the  Republic  of 
Letters.  He  thinks  his  windows  are  open  toward 
Jerusalem,  when,  in  reality,  his  vision  is  bounded 
by  the  walls  of  his  neighbor's  back  yard,  and  he 
finds  the  view  depressing.  Therefore,  having  been 
dowered  by  an  inscrutable  Providence  with  the  gift 
of  fluent  speech  (like  Ulysses,  lago.  King  Claudius, 
and  other  sHppery  characters),  he  rings  the  changes 
on  the  rubbish  heaps  that  he  sees  there,  never  sus- 
pecting they  may  be  the  unassembled  parts  of  a  new 
flying-machine. 

But  the  clock  is  striking,  and  Phoebus  plucks 
my  ear!  "Make  an  end,"  he  commands  me,  '*of 
this  pedantic  gallimaufry  of  words,  and  explain,  if 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       155 

you  can,  to  your  long-suffering  auditors,  what  it  all 
comes  to,  and  how  it  may  be  construed  as  a  charge 
to  the  people ;  for  such  you  averred  at  the  outset,  O 
shameless  one,  that  you  were  burdened  in  conscience 
to  deliver !"  Phoebus  is  right  in  principle,  but  alas ! 
Phoebus  is  an  ancient.  He  belongs  to  an  age  out- 
worn. I  am  afraid  he  spoke  Greek  when  he  was  in 
his  prime,  and  we  moderns  have  got  far  beyond 
the  necessity  of  comprehending  a  dead  language, 
even  if  it  be  the  speech  of  the  ever-living  gods.  Be- 
sides, Phoebus  never  knew  any  American  women, 
and  he  cannot  therefore  appreciate  the  agility  of 
their  minds.  But  some  among  you,  as  I  perceive, 
axe  mere  men,  and  therefore  need  enlightenment. 
For  is  it  not  the  wail  of  the  uncomprehended  woman 
in  every  recent  drama:  '*You  don't  understand! 
Men  never  understand  ! ' ' 

Therefore  my  peroration  shall  be  brief,  and  I  will 
make  it  as  plain  as  I  can.  Scholarship,  in  its  most 
rigorous  sense,  is  a  necessary  element  of  culture. 
Do  not  dishearten  it.  Do  not  insult  it  (and  stultify 
yourselves)  by  confusing  it  with  pedantry.  Your  new 
president,  like  those  who  have  gone  before  him,  is 
a  scholar.  Hold  up  his  hands !  Cheer  up  his  heart! 
Help  him,  Alumnae  of  Vassar,  to  keep  the  torch 
alight,  and  to  pass  it  on,  still  burning  clearly,  to  who- 
ever shall  receive  it  from  him  in  the  sacred  race ! 


The  Installation  of 
President  MacCracken 

BY  WILLIAM  CALDWELL  PLUNKETT  RHOADES 

Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Vassar  College 

IN  these  golden  days  of  our  jubilee,  the  time  has 
come  for  a  message  from  the  trustees  of  the  col- 
lege, that  body  of  men  and  women  who  have  wrought 
faithfully  for  its  establishment.  I  count  it  a  good  Pro- 
vidence which  permits  me,  on  behalf  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees  of  Vassar  College,  to  invest  you,  Henry 
Noble  MacCracken,  with  this  sacred  office,  to  pro- 
claim you  publicly  as  the  President  of  Vassar  Col- 
lege, as  one  for  whom  our  prayer  is  that  He  in  whom 
all  treasures  of  wisdom  are  hid,  may  give  you  the 
key  to  those  treasures,  that  you  may  know  how  to 
keep  this  trust  worthily. 


In  the  Cause  of  Learning 

BY  HENRY  NOBLE  MAC  CRACKEN 

President  of  Vassar  College 

1  ACCEPT  the  charge  that  has  been  laid  upon  me 
with  all  the  humility  and  with  all  the  hope  in 
the  world. 

Professor  Kittredge,  there  was  a  lad  just  out  of 
college,  fifteen  years  ago,  who  began  to  be  a  teacher 
in  the  land  of  Syria,  by  the  shore  of  the  Adonis 
Ri ver,  where  Thammuz  died,  and  the  scattered  parts 
of  Osiris  came  to  land ;  and  the  most  impressive  fact 
in  his  first  year's  experience  in  the  East  was  the 
feeUng  of  affection  and  loyalty  which  clung  around 
his  title,  ma'almy — '*  my  teacher."  He  had  always 
been  accustomed  to  take  teachers  as  a  matter  of 
course, — necessary  inflictions,  perhaps, — but  tha.t 
their  title  should  be  regarded  as  highest  in  respect 
of  all  titles  by  courtesy  I  confess  had  not  crossed  his 
mind.  One  of  the  things  that  the  East  taught  him 
was  a  reverence  for  the  calling.  The  Arabs  have  a 
proverb :  *  *  Him  who  lends  me  I  can  repay ;  but  for 
him  who  teaches  me  something  there  is  no  pay." 
(The  budgets  of  American  colleges  were  originally 
designed  with  reference  to  this  proverb.)  But  the 
Arabs  are  right;  there  is  no  measuring  the  debt 
which  the  pupil  owes  his  teacher.  Thus,  as  I  greet 


158     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  teacher  who  gave  me  strong  impulse  to  labor  in 
thecause  of  learning,  with  the  words  Salaam  timmak, 
ya  ma'^almy^  ' '  Peace  to  thy  lips,  O  my  teacher, ' '  the 
words  bear  more  of  meaning  to  me  than  the  con- 
ventional salutation  for  excellence  of  oratory.  They 
mean,  in  fact,  all  that  I  have  to  say  to-day  of  the 
dynamics  of  student  life,  yes,  more  than  all.  Salaam 
timmak,  ya  ma'almy. 

Dr.  Finley,  as  the  representative  of  the  state  and 
of  the  pubhc  invited  with  us,  there  was  another 
phrase  which  I  learned  out  there,  which  seemed  to 
me  to  have  a  meaning  beyond  that  of  an  English 
phrase,  and  in  greeting  you  with  the  phrase  Beii 
betak, ' '  My  house,  thy  house, ' '  I  wish  to  assure  you 
and  all  our  guests  of  the  welcome  that  lies  behind 
such  a  phrase. 

The  student's  interest  in  his  teacher  and  the  com- 
modity with  which  his  teacher  deals  is  not  to-day 
what  it  has  been  in  the  past,  at  least  so  far  as  re- 
gards our  colleges  of  arts.  Of  all  the  varied  appeals 
that  are  being  made  in  these  days  to  revive  the 
student's  ambition,  I  commend  you  to  the  practice 
of  a  friend  who  deans  it  in  a  college  not  one  hun- 
dred miles  away.  Calling  a  student  to  his  office  not 
so  long  ago  he  said :  ''Jim,  Professor  Blank  has  bet 
me  thirty  dollars  that  you  will  be  dropped  from  col- 


THE   INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       159 

lege  before  commencement.  I  have  taken  up  his  bet; 
the  stakes  are  in  that  drawer.  Am  I  going  to  lose 
that  money?  "  We  all  know  Jim's  response  to  such 
an  irresistible  proof  of  faith.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  when  such  violent  stimulants  are  necessary  to 
gain  application,  the  reaction  will  not  be  wanting. 
The  interest  of  students  to-day  in  far  too  many 
branches  of  learning  is  of  the  kind  which  the  most 
enthusiastic  professor  could  hardly  with  good  con- 
science describe  as  more  than  kindly.  A  student 
of  my  own,  who  had  looked  with  indulgent  benevo- 
lence upon  my  efforts  through  the  semester  to  obtain 
something  of  his  allegiance,  came  to  me  after  the 
marks  had  been  announced,  and  made  this  apology 
as  one  gentleman  to  another:  '*Mr.  MacCracken,  I 
want  to  say  I  am  sorry  you  did  not  get  me  through, 
because  I  know  every  flunk  gets  you  in  bad  at  the 
office."  This  is,  no  doubt,  an  extreme  instance.  One 
could  hardly  classify  this  courteous  gentleman  as 
really  affected  by  what  I  will  call  the  dynamics  of 
student  life.  We  must  press  our  inquiry  a  little 
closer,  if  we  are  to  understand  the  problem  of  inter- 
est in  education. 

Our  friends,  the  physicists,  have  divided  the  sci- 
ence of  dynamics  into  its  branches  of  kinetics  and 
statics :  kinetics  is  the  study  of  the  circumstances 
of  actual  motion  ;  statics  is  the  study  of  the  circum- 


160     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

stances  under  which  a  body  may  remain  at  rest. 
The  division,  while  it  need  not  be  pressed  too  far, 
may  be  a  satisfactory  one  to  follow  in  this  attempt 
to  analyze  the  student  mind. 

Every  year  as  I  look  down  into  the  faces  of  the 
entering  students,  maintaining  year  after  year  as 
they  do — in  their  geographical  distribution,  their 
religious  faiths,  their  social  standing,  their  intellect- 
ual promise — the  mystery  of  the  law  of  averages, 
the  question  has  forced  itself  upon  me :  ' '  What  is 
it  that  has  really  brought  you  to  college?"  To  call 
this  kinetic  force  the  law  of  averages  is  not  to  de- 
fine it,  but  simply  to  describe  one  of  its  attributes. 
What  motives  impel  each  year  in  every  college 
that  group  of  students  whose  composite  picture  we 
teachers  so  clearly  have  recognized?  I  name  it  com- 
posite because,  whether  it  has  been  our  fortune  as 
teacher  to  have  assigned  to  us  students  whose  names 
run  from  K  to  0,  or  whether  our  class  lists  have  run 
the  gamut  of  the  entire  alphabet,  the  picture  seems 
a  consistent  one. 

Side  by  side  on  the  row  there  sit  the  student  who 
has  not  come  to  college  but  has  been  sent,  and  whose 
lack-lustre  eyes  convince  the  teacher  that  her 
thoughts  are  otherwhere ;  the  student  who  has  come 
for  a  good  time,  and  who  radiates  in  an  aura,  youth, 
high  spirits,  and  irresponsibility;  the  student  whose 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       161 

compelling  force — if  it  could  be  analyzed — -might 
be  called  conventionalism,  and  who  comes  to  college 
because  among  her  friends  and  in  her  city  it  has 
become  the  thing  to  come,  and  who  has  scarcely  at 
any  time  given  further  thought  to  the  subject  than 
that  it  was  the  most  natural  course  of  events.  These 
three  come  from  one  social  level,  and  seem  instinc- 
tively to  be  friends  at  once.  They  look  perhaps  with 
a  little  awe,  perhaps  with  a  litde  pity,  at  the  girl 
next  on  the  row,  who  has  been  driven  by  the  love 
of  learning,  the  insatiable  curiosity  of  the  devotee, 
whose  eyes  burn  with  a  consuming  fire  that  wastes 
her  physical  self.  The  teacher,  glancing  down  the 
row,  may  never  be  certain  of  those  who  hold  the 
higher  seats.  This  student,  at  least,  will  never  aban- 
don the  pursuit  of  learning.  Beyond  her,  of  larger 
frame,  more  easy  carriage  and  bearing,  perhaps  with 
even  more  promise  for  the  future,  is  the  student  in 
whom  ambition  plays  a  great  part, — ambition  of 
which  she  may  not  be  conscious,  but  which,  dwell- 
ing far  beneath  the  surface  of  her  life,  rises  now 
and  again  as  the  one  great  motive  of  her  acts.  She 
is  here  because  knowledge  means  power,  because 
discipline  gives  authority ;  and  she  looks  beyond  the 
class-room,  dreaming  of  the  day  when  these  gifts 
shall  have  their  sufficient  exercise.  One  more  sketch 
may  complete  the  row.  There  is  the  student  with  a 


162     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

special  talent  already  partly  developed,  who  comes 
to  college  for  the  pure  pleasure  of  its  exercise,  the 
pleasure  of  its  development ;  collegiate  life  is  to 
her  an  instrument  of  practice ;  her  aims  are  definite 
and  technical  even  when  she  matriculates ;  she  fits 
uneasily  into  the  broad  curriculum  of  the  general 
course. 

Let  this,  then,  stand  as  the  roll-call  of  the  typical 
group  at  college.  These  are  the  motives  which  may 
be  called  the  kinetics  of  student  life.  What  laws 
shall  be  exercised  upon  them  for  that  subtle  trans- 
formation which  brings  out  in  the  newcomer  the  col- 
legian's point  of  view?  Will  these  motives  remain? 
Will  others  take  their  places?  Is  there  any  single 
abiding  plan  which  will  be  able  to  weld  such  differ- 
ent types  into  one?  Is  this  advisable?  These  ques- 
tions form  the  great  problem  of  the  future  for  the 
undergraduate  college  to  solve.  Hitherto  our  col- 
leges have  gone  much  by  inheritance ;  the  business 
of  learning  has  been  handed  on  from  one  generation 
to  another ;  sons  and  daughters  have  grown  up  and 
gone  into  the  business,  scarcely  questioning  their 
own  wishes,  but  entering  because  it  was  their  ex- 
pected duty.  There  are  signs,  however,  the  country 
over,  of  changes,  which  all  of  you  have  noted,  in  this 
docility  of  the  college  world.  Values  of  studies  have 
been  called  in  question.  Attempts  to  set  up  scales  by 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       163 

which  the  various  branches  may  be  weighed  have 
everywhere  been  started. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  second  great  question  that 
confronts  the  teacher  as  he  looks  down  into  the  faces 
of  the  freshmen.  His  thought  is  no  longer,  ''What 
has  brought  you  here?"  but,  "What  have  we  to 
give  you  ?  ' '  The  psychologist  answers, ' '  Interest, ' ' 
or  if  not  so  broad  an  answer  as  this,  let  him  reply, 
' '  An  interest. ' '  Education  in  our  time  is  based  upon 
this  single  appeal.  It  is  so  of  the  days  of  school.  Pro- 
fessor Dewey  says  in  his  prediction  as  to  "Schools 
of  To-morrow :  "  "  Interest  ought  to  be  the  basis 
for  selection,  because  children  are  interested  in  the 
things  they  need  to  learn. ' '  The  theories  of  the  hour 
most  loudly  proclaimed  in  education  are  those  which 
devise  methods  of  arousing  an  early  interest  in  the 
child.  The  curricula  of  American  colleges  to-day  are 
no  less  based  on  this  great  law.  Many  teachers  and 
many  students  feel  that  the  application  of  the  word 
required  or  compulsory  to  any  part  of  collegiate  in- 
struction thereby  destroys  the  great  part  of  the  edu- 
cational value  which  such  study  might  otherwise 
have.  The  catalogue  of  the  typical  college  of  arts 
to-day  exhausts  the  printer's  stock  of  the  letters  m, 
«,  and  y;  the  student  may  do  this  or  that ;  she  may 
take  one  or  the  other ;  elective^  optional^  desired^ — 
such  are  the  words  exhibited  in  the  description  of 


164     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

courses.  When  considered  in  detail,  the  announce- 
ment in  many  courses  resembles  the  description  in 
the  nurseryman's  catalogue;  the  student,  like  the 
commuter,  is  to  be  tempted  with  a  tale  like  this : 
*'Conchology  F,  first  semester  (3).  This  course  if 
well  planted  early  in  the  fall  will  give  out  a  rare  and 
profuse  bloom  of  gorgeous  colors  and  luxuriant  foli- 
age, throughout  the  season ;  its  effects  last  well  into 
the  following  year." 

Yet,  with  all  this  appeal  to  the  statics  of  student 
life,  the  forces  that  hold  the  student  at  his  task, 
the  colleges  are  not  satisfied.  Marks,  prizes,  promo- 
tions, penalties,  supplement  the  variety  of  stimulus 
which  the  varied  table  of  college  fare  provides.  Stu- 
dents are  guided  to  interest  in  separate  fields  of  study 
through  group  systems, — group  systems  which, 
in  most  colleges,  are  nevertheless  so  broad  in  the 
alternatives  offered,  so  generous  in  the  choices,  as 
scarcely  to  deserve  the  name.  In  fact,  the  free  elec- 
tive system  at  Vassar,  according  to  a  recent  study, 
has  resulted  in  an  equal  concentration  upon  single 
fields  with  that  shown  in  colleges  where  a  group 
system  has  prevailed.  And  all  the  while,  in  spite  of 
these  innumerable  efforts  to  arouse  the  interest  of 
the  student,  the  most  successful  teachers  of  our  time 
will  tell  us  that  this  is  the  one  most  difficult  task  in 
college  work.  Not  only  is  interest  a  controlling  ques- 


THE   INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       165 

tion  among  professors,  but  with  student  life  itself. 
Student  self-government,  as  you  student  delegates 
know  very  well,  has  to  battle  with  the  same  indiffer- 
ence in  the  college  body  that  the  professors  find. 

In  the  same  way  trustees  and  committees  are  con- 
stantly engaged  in  making  the  circumstances  of  stu- 
dent life  favorable  to  study ;  proctors  obtain  quiet  in 
study  hours;  *' Silence!"  stares  upon  us  in  com- 
manding signs  within  the  precincts  of  the  Library, 
whose  very  atmosphere  is  silence ;  the  clamor  of  re- 
bellious steam  within  the  pipes  is  stilled  by  vacuum 
systems;  sites  are  selected  for  the  college  remote 
from  noisy  and  distracting  parts  of  the  town.  And 
still  the  problem  faces  us :  what  static  force  will  hold 
the  student's  interest? 

In  direct  appeal  the  American  college  of  arts  to-day 
may  at  first  sight  contrast  unfavorably  with  the 
schools  of  different  aim  and  method.  In  the  techni- 
cal school  of  to-day  one  may  enter  the  class-room 
where  the  shop  instructor  is  teaching  a  group  of  men 
gathered  about  the  forge — one  may  even  slam  the 
door — and  not  a  single  student  in  the  room  will  turn 
his  head ;  one  may  pass  among  the  groups  of  girls 
engaged  in  learning  new  designs  in  embroidery,  and 
not  an  eye  will  be  diverted  in  the  direction  of  the  in- 
terrupter. A  nurse  who  gives  instruction  to  mothers 
in  country  districts  said  at  Vassar,  the  other  day : 


166     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

'*My  classes  require  no  attendance  to  be  kept." 
The  truth  of  such  an  observation  is  patent  to  any 
one  who  will  but  take  the  trouble  to  step  around  the 
corner  and  observe.  What  is,  however,  the  reason 
for  this?  First,  I  think,  is  the  fact  that  such  workers 
have  been  accustomed  to  win  against  odds.  They 
have  been  trained  by  bitter  experience  in  the  art  of 
attention.  But  more  than  this  is  the  great  single  stim- 
ulus of  self-interest  which  is  in  the  back  of  the  mind 
of  every  student.  The  trade,  the  profession,  the 
definite  pursuit,  beckon  instinctively  every  hour. 
Application  at  the  moment  seems  to  be  instantly 
transformed  into  energy ;  there  is  no  long  period  of 
waiting,  but  mental  acquisition  is  to  be  turned  into 
terms  of  more  recognizable  value.  The  interest  of 
such  classes  is  self-interest.  I  use  the  word  in  no ' 
unworthy  sense,  with  no  criticism  of  the  fact,  with 
no  lack  of  recognition  of  the  value  which  such 
schools  possess  for  our  nation.  I  only  point  out  that 
it  is  harder  in  the  college  of  the  liberal  arts — nay, 
it  is  almost  impossible — for  the  teacher  to  find  the 
appeal  to  self-interest.  Self-preservation  at  college  is 
a  motive  which  is  appealed  to  largely  through  marks, 
and  the  increasing  tension  at  examination  periods 
is  almost  the  only  appearance — a  wholly  artificial 
one,  by  the  way — of  this  motive  in  the  life  of  a 
college. 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       167 

There  must  be  some  other  way  of  obtaining  the 
enthusiastic  assent  of  the  college  student  to  the  train- 
ing which  the  course  in  arts  may  give  him.  How 
shall  this  way  be  found  ?  Some  teachers  have  thought 
to  find  it  by  what  may  be  called  the  forcing  process. 
They  have  taught  history  by  seeking  to  make  of 
each  student  a  little  historian ;  they  have  taught  lit- 
erature by  suggesting  the  possibilities  of  genius  in 
the  undergraduate  mind ;  they  have  taught  govern- 
ment by  mapping  out  the  college  as  an  object  lesson ; 
they  have  instructed  in  ethics  by  essays  in  college 
problems,  so-called.  But  the  forcing  process  is  at 
best  artificial.  We  cannot  make  of  the  college  com- 
munity a  mirror  of  the  larger  life.  The  attempt, 
though  plausible,  is  doomed  to  disappointment. 
Other  teachers  have  sought  to  induce  in  their  stu- 
dents an  intense  curiosity  in  themselves.  They  have 
emphasized  the  accomplishments  which  a  superfi- 
cial breadth  of  study  may  seem  to  provide.  They 
have  imposed  an  honor  upon  their  disciples.  Up  to 
a  certain  point  they  have  succeeded.  The  appear- 
ance of  culture  is  most  easily  obtained,  perhaps,  by 
the  appeal  to  this  motive,  but  the  larger  results  may 
never  come  in  this  way.  What  is  indeed  the  real 
business  of  a  college?  What  is  it  that  college  does 
to  a  man  or  a  woman? 

The  question  might  be  answered,  perhaps,  if  we 


168     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

could  accurately  study  the  characteristics  of  those 
who  have  not  come  in  any  way  under  college  influ- 
ence or  the  influence  of  its  disciples.  What  are  the 
essential  characteristics  of  a  so-called  self-made  man, 
apart  from  merely  superficial  ones?  The  one  great 
characteristic,  it  seems  to  me,  is  his  positiveness, 
his  absolute  self-confidence,  bred  of  unconsciousness 
of  a  wider  experience.  College,  then,  means  poise, 
consciousness  of  a  world  experience,  the  larger  bal- 
ance in  the  realization  of  the  life  of  the  race.  There 
is,  too,  as  a  characteristic  of  the  self-made  man,  of 
at  least  the  more  striking  members  of  the  type,  a 
sense  of  something  lacking,  a  feeling  of  unfulfil- 
ment,  a  note  of  deprivation.  Many  self-made  men 
have  expressed  this  in  giving  others  that  which  they 
themselves  have  missed.  Hence,  again,  college  gives 
to  a  student  the  sense  of  fulfilment ;  the  sense  of  a 
rich  inheritance ;  a  feeling  to  the  student  that  the 
kingdom  of  the  mind  has  been  unrolled,  its  prospects 
delineated,  its  promises  described.  In  a  word,  col- 
lege is  to  our  time — the  saying  is  a  bold  one,  per- 
haps— college  is  to  our  time  what  Dante  was  to 
his.  Dante  is  called  by  a  recent  writer  ''the  mediae- 
val synthesis,"  the  bringing  together  and  the  sum- 
ming up  of  his  age,  the  fulfilment  of  life  and  learn- 
ing, the  unity  which  ran  through  the  diversity  of 
mediaeval  life,  the  brimming  channel  of  current 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       169 

convention  and  thought  through  which  the  full  feel- 
ing of  the  age  poured  forth. 

This  is,  then,  what  college  has  to  offer  to  the  stu- 
dent, —  the  genius  of  modern  life.  There  is  much  of 
promise  as  there  is  much  that  makes  for  thought  in 
such  a  phrase.  If  this  be  true,  colleges  will  scarcely 
increase  the  number  of  surpassing  artists.  A  re- 
porter, seeking  to  give  the  public  what  they  want, 
asked  me  last  week : ' '  Tell  me,  if  George  Eliot  came 
to  Vassar,  what  kind  of  novels  would  she  write?  " 
I  could  not  answer  the  question ;  but  I  am  sure  she 
would  be  conscious  of  the  sense  of  the  great  past 
which  is  preserved  and  recorded  for  us  in  the  col- 
legiate course.  For  the  rest,  she  would  find  adapta- 
tion, organization,  multiplication  of  the  resources  of 
the  mind  rather  than  initiative  or  innovation.  Col- 
lege itself  is  the  genius. 

And  whatever  of  special  stimulus  its  students  are 
to  have  will  come  from  the  sense  of  their  unity  with 
its  main  purpose,  the  cause  of  learning.  Hence, 
the  community  feeHng  will  rise  within  the  four 
college  years,  the  feeling,  too,  of  observation  and  of 
criticism  rather  than  of  creation.  Minds  will  be 
curious  rather  than  original ;  the  individual  will  be 
transmuted  into  the  corporate  soul;  the  heirs  of  all 
the  ages  will  be  somewhat  heavily  burdened  with 
the  sense  of  their  inheritance,  and  many  of  them 


170     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

will  be  content  to  leave  their  rights  forever  in  chan- 
cery. 

But  for  others  the  college  experience  will  be  a 
beneficial  one.  ''Foreign  countries,"  said  Beowulf, 

are  best  visited  by  him  who  is  of  high  worth  in 
himself. ' '  The  country  of  learning  is  best  sought  by 
students  well  deserving.  There  seems  a  very  gen- 
eral agreement  among  educators  of  our  time  that  as 
in  the  last  generation  the  field  of  knowledge  grew  far 
beyond  the  ability  of  former  faculties  of  half  a  dozen 
professors  to  encompass,  so,  in  our  day,  the  field  has 
extended  beyond  the  scope  of  all  but  a  very  few  of 
our  largest  universities.  The  recently  inaugurated 
head  of  that  university  which  first  stood  for  research 
into  the  ultimate  things  of  science  and  of  life  has 
asserted  that  each  university  should  set  before  itself 
ideals  determined  by  its  geographical  position,  its 
relative  nearness  to  government  centres,  great  manu- 
factories, great  centres  of  population,  and  the  like. 
Would  it  not  be  equally  fair  to  assume  in  the  case 
of  such  a  college  as  Vassar,  that  its  peculiar  appeal 
to  young  women  seeking  higher  education  might  be 
determined  by  what  would  be  called  a  stratum  of 
interest,  an  idealism  underlying  the  whole  land  and 
not  confined  to  any  section?  To  maintain  its  posi- 
tion, Vassar  College  must  drive  down  until  it  taps 
this  vein,  and  there  are  signs  from  past  experience 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       171 

that,  once  tapped,  this  flow  of  good-will  throughout 
the  country  will  be  no  less  continuous  than  that  of 
the  old  Franklin  oil  wells  which  have  been  flowing 
now  these  forty  years. 

What  is  to  be  this  vein,  which,  running  through 
the  great  resources  of  national  life,  shall  constantly 
and  continuously  feed,  as  it  certainly  has  in  the  past, 
this  college  with  a  never-ending  stream  of  devoted 
students?  I  have  called  it  the  vein  of  idealism.  It  is 
that  current  of  present  thought  which  magnifies  the 
cause  and  sinks  the  individual  in  the  great  purpose 
for  which  the  individual  may  strive.  To  convince 
our  students  early  that  they  are  all  essential  parts 
of  a  great  plan  is  to  provide  the  interest  which  is 
the  critical  element  in  American  education.  In  this 
sense  the  college  will  never  become  as  it  has  been 
described,  **the  home  of  lost  causes;"  it  will  for- 
ever be  the  nursery  of  new  causes.  The  fulfilment 
of  these  great  needs  of  national  life  may  be  far  dis- 
tant, but  if  the  need  at  least  is  perceived,  the  devo- 
tion of  the  student  will  not  be  wanting.  My  short 
experience  in  college  life  has  taught  me  that  the 
happiest  among  the  student  body  are  always  those 
already  identified  with  some  great  unifying  force. 

What  shall  be  the  nature  of  these  forces  to  which 
we  shall  invite  our  students  to  affirm  undying  al- 
legiance? In  the  formative  period  of  college  life  it 


172     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

would  be  an  error  for  us  to  predict  anything  more 
closely  defined  than  the  three  great  missions,  reli- 
gion, learning,  and  society.  Early  enough  the  quiet 
of  college  days  shall  have  been  exchanged  for  the 
narrow  tread  of  the  professional  career ;  our  students 
will  take  up  this  or  that  definite  cause,  this  or  that 
more  confining  propaganda,  it  may  be,  to  which 
their  whole  lives  will  be  devoted.  The  college  cam- 
pus should  be  held  sacredly  free  from  all  selfish  im- 
pulses. Every  class-room  should  be  an  open  forum, 
not  a  closed  shop.  Academic  freedom,  it  seems  to 
me,  consists  in  the  right  within  the  sphere  of  one's 
own  field  of  study  to  teach  the  facts  up  to  the  Hmits 
of  human  knowledge,  and  beyond  that  border  where 
fact  ceases  and  conjecture  begins,  to  present  a  rea- 
sonable harmony  of  thought.  Such  are  the  great 
causes  in  which  Vassar  College  will  enHst  her  com- 
panies of  the  future.  Vassar  will  recognize  that  ac- 
tive personal  reHgion  is  the  only  safe  ground  upon 
which  to  build  the  mighty  fabric  of  the  mind ;  that 
a  respect  for  all  true  learning  is  the  beginning  of 
scholarship ;  and  that  a  general  love  for  society  can 
never  be  divorced  from  the  gospel  of  loving  one's 
neighbor. 

The  most  of  those  who  enter  our  class-room  will 
attach  themselves  where  the  need  is  most  important ; 
only  the  courageous,  the  constant,  and  the  deter- 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       173 

mined  will  prosecute  the  search  for  new  continents. 
For  a  thousand  who  volunteer  for  Red  Cross  work 
in  the  tumultuous  advertisement  of  war,  there  is  but 
one  Stefansson  resolutely  turning  his  back  upon  the 
great  upheaval  and  setting  his  face  again  to  the  far 
north.  This  will  be,  doubtless,  increasingly  true  for 
women,  whose  reactions  to  the  immediate  stimulus 
are  more  intense  than  those  of  men ;  whose  sense 
of  humor  yields  more  readily  to  the  accident  of 
the  moment  than  to  a  pre-arrangement ;  who  fling 
themselves  in  companies  into  the  crying  needs  of 
the  hour ;  who  also  in  the  problems  of  routine  pos- 
sess in  high  degree  the  quahty  of  patience.  There 
will  hardly  be  more  than  one  Maria  Mitchell  in  a 
generation. 

So  it  must  be  with  learning.  Upon  every  side  the 
more  direct  appeals  will  press  upon  us,  turning  one 
or  another  of  this  band  of  ours  into  useful  labor  for 
mankind.  But  the  highest  and  the  first  cause  of  all 
at  college  is  the  cause  of  scholarship.  To  stand  where 
no  man  has  trod,  on  the  margin  of  life's  view,  and 
to  seek  out  with  steady  purpose  what  life  has  yet 
to  offer ! 


Salutations 

Greeting  :  On  Behalf  of  the  Colleges 
for  Women 

BY  MARY  EMMA  WOOLLEY 

President  of  Mount  Holyoke  College 

IT  is  a  very  gracious  privilege,  Mr.  President, 
which  is  extended  to  me  this  morning.  A  greet- 
ing from  the  colleges  for  women  is  only  another  name 
for  congratulation,  and  such  a  wealth  of  material  as 
we  have  for  our  congratulations !  Generally  a  college 
is  content  with  a  birthday, —  or  with  a  new  presi- 
dent,—  but  Vassar  never  does  anything  by  halves, 
and  consequently  must  add  to  the  glories  of  her  half- 
hundredth  birthday,  the  distinction  of  an  inaugura- 
tion. May  she  celebrate  her  centennial  in  a  similar 
way, — with  the  installation  of  her  next  president! 
We  cannot  look  out  over  this  beautiful  campus, 
with  its  stately  buildings,  without  being  impressed 
anew  by  the  material  accomplishment ;  an  accom- 
plishment of  which  every  dollar  represents  its  full 
worth,  for  if  ever  financial  bricks  were  made  without 
straw,  the  feat  has  been  accomplished  in  our  colleges 
for  women,  the  results  being  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  gifts  received. 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       175 

But  our  congratulations  are  upon  the  intellectual 
achievement  of  the  college  as  well  as  upon  its  ma- 
terial accomplishment.  The  publications  which  are 
a  part  of  this  celebration  indicate  both  the  achieve- 
ment and  the  stress  that  Vassar  places  upon  the 
intellectual  life,  which,  after  all,  is  the  raison  d'etre 
for  the  college  for  women,  and,  may  I  add,  also 
for  the  college  for  men, — a  fact  occasionally  over- 
looked. 

Again,  our  congratulations  are  for  what  this  col- 
lege has  accomplished  as  a  great  social  and  moral 
force  in  the  community  and  in  the  nation.  It  would 
be  invidious  to  call  attention  to  some  of  the  names 
which  are  in  our  minds  at  this  moment,  names  of 
women  whom  we  all  delight  to  honor, — invidious 
and  incomplete,  for  there  are  Vassar  alumnae  in  less 
conspicuous  places,  less  widely  known,  who  in  quiet 
ways  are  helping  to  make  the  world  better  and 
happier. 

You  and  the  college  are  to  be  congratulated,  Mr. 
President,  for  all  that  the  fifty  years  have  wrought. 
I  cannot  turn  from  this  backward  look  and  the  sug- 
gestion of  reasons  for  our  congratulation,  without 
reference  to  the  chief  among  them  all,  the  one  that 
has  been  in  large  part  responsible  for  the  progress 
of  this  college, — the  sane,  steady,  able,  wise  leader- 
ship for  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  Vassar's  president, 


176     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

honored  and  beloved  without  as  well  as  within  the 
college  Avails. 

But  this  is  the  day  for  looking  forward,  and  again 
Vassar  is  to  be  congratulated  on  all  the  promise 
of  the  future  under  your  leadership,  Mr.  President. 
Surely  no  administration  was  ever  begun  with 
greater  inspiration.  The  background  of  the  world 
tragedy  but  deepens  the  sense  of  the  importance  of 
the  work  to  which  you  have  put  your  hand,  and 
makes  this  occasion  one  of  unusual  significance.  I 
have  in  mind  two  remarks  :  one  made  by  President 
Lowell  at  the  Brown  celebration  a  year  ago,  that  the 
battlefields  of  Europe  were  taking  from  the  world 
many  of  the  scholars  of  to-morrow  as  well  as  of  to- 
day, placing  an  added  responsibility  upon  the  uni- 
versities and  colleges  of  America  to  make  good  their 
loss ;  the  other,  from  an  article  written  by  an  East 
Indian,  in  which  he  predicted  that  as  a  result  of 
the  war  the  centre  of  civilization  would  shift  to  the 
Orient,  as  Europe  would  have  no  one  to  train  the 
coming  generation,  and  America  was  manifestly 
unprepared  to  take  up  that  work. 

The  challenge  to  the  American  college  for  women 
as  well  as  to  the  college  for  men  is  a  challenge  to  be 
a  leader  in  the  depth  and  thoroughness  of  its  work, 
in  the  breadth  of  its  sympathies,  in  the  loftiness 
of  its  ideahsm.  ''To  set  the  noblest  free"  is  a  motto 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       177 

for  the  Christian  college  as  truly  as  for  Christian 
men  and  women,  and  in  your  work  of  leadership  in 
the  realization  of  this  high  ideal,  the  colleges  for 
women  bid  you  God-speed. 


Greeting:  On  Behalf  of  the  Colleges  for 
Women  afBliated  with  Universities 

BY  VIRGINIA  CROCHERON   GILDERSLEEVE 

Dean  of  Barnard  College 

PRESIDENT  MacCracken,  I  have  the  honor  to 
bring  greetings  to-day  not  only  from  Barnard 
College  of  Columbia  University  and  all  that  ancient 
university  as  a  whole,  but  also  from  the  entire  group 
of  affiliated  colleges  for  women  which,  as  separate 
entities,  but  under  the  protecting  shadow  and  with 
the  help  and  inspiration  of  the  great  universities  of 
which  they  are  parts,  carry  on  their  work  in  what 
they  deem  a  happy  mean  between  co-education  and 
the  separate  college. 

We  of  the  affiliated  institutions,  like  all  the  other 
colleges  for  women,  look  upon  Vassar  as  the  re- 
spected and  beloved  older  sister,  who  has  blazed  the 
trail  for  us  all.  In  this  conservative  eastern  section 
of  the  country,  it  was  well  that  Vassar,  in  a  com- 
paratively secluded  and  safe  environment,  should 
first  attempt  the  perilous  adventure  of  teaching  girls 
Greek  and  philosophy  and  higher  mathematics.  Not 
until  she  had  survived  this  bold  beginning,  and  had 
disproved  the  dire  prophecy  that  no  truly  Christian 
parents  would  ever  send  their  girls  to  college,  did 
we  venture  the  still  more  perilous  exploit  of  plant- 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       179 

ing  our  outposts  of  educated  femininity  in  the  very 
centre  of  the  great  masculine  universities,  encom- 
passed not  only  by  the  dangers  of  philosophy  and 
higher  mathematics,  but  also  by  a  great  body  of 
male  seekers  for  knowledge — a  combination  which 
still  seems  to  the  University  of  Virginia  too  dread- 
ful to  be  dared. 

These  greater  perils  we  are  peacefully  surviving, 
as  Vassar  of  the  early  years  survived  hers.  There 
may  be  occasional  moments  when  in  the  midst  of  the 
complexities  of  a  large  university  organization,  and 
the  perplexing  complications  which  are  inevitable 
in  such  family  life,  we  look  with  momentary  envy 
upon  the  life  of  single  blessedness  led  by  Vassar  and 
the  other  separate  colleges.  But  only  for  an  instant. 
We  would  not  change  our  wedded  state.  We  value 
as  of  priceless  worth  our  connection  with  the  great 
universities  who  have  welcomed  us  to  their  inspir- 
ing sisterhoods  of  schools  and  faculties.  We  would 
not  change  our  state,  nor  would  we  for  an  instant 
wish  to  have  Vassar  and  the  other  great  separate 
colleges  change  theirs.  They  stand  as  perpetual 
symbols  of  achievement  and  guides  for  our  sex. 

For  fifty  years  the  tradition  and  the  standard  of 
Vassar  have  given  strength  and  inspiration  to  all 
who  have  striven  for  the  better  education  of  women. 
Her  policy  of  sound  scholarship  and  of  broadly  lib- 


180     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

eral  education,  unshaken  by  momentary  fads  and  vo- 
cational fallacies,  the  sane  type  of  normal,  healthy, 
happy  womanhood  exemplified  by  her  graduates, — 
these  have  helped  us  all. 

And  now,  on  the  threshold  of  an  era  rich  with 
rapidly  unfolding  opportunities  and  responsibilities 
for  educated  women,  you  come.  President  Mac- 
Cracken,  into  this  rare  inheritance.  By  your  family 
tradition,  by  your  own  sound  scholarship,  by  your 
broad  vision,  you  are  equipped  to  lead  Vassar  on  to 
even  greater  years. 

From  the  affiliated  colleges  for  women  I  bring  to 
you  good  wishes  for  a  long  and  brilliant  administra- 
tion, crowned  with  satisfying  success,  and  to  Vassar 
affectionate  greetings  and  felicitations  on  this  happy 
and  memorable  day. 


Greeting  :  On  Behalf  of  the  Universities 

BY  ARTHUR  TWINING  HADLEY 

President  of  Yale  University 

PRESIDENT  MacCracken,  on  behalf  of  the 
universities  of  the  United  States,  I  take  great 
pleasure  in  congratulating  an  institution  which,  in 
the  novelty  and  variety  of  its  educational  problems 
and  its  record  of  success  in  meeting  those  problems, 
is  second  to  none  in  our  whole  honorable  body.  I 
also  take  this  opportunity  for  myself  and  for  my 
colleagues  of  congratulating  you  personally  on  your 
accession  to  the  *^seat  perilous,"  to  a  career  difficult 
beyond  beUef,  and  as  glorious  as  it  is  difficult. 

You  will  be  required,  as  another  speaker  has 
already  said,  to  make  bricks  without  straw.  The 
work  of  education  in  which  you  are  engaged  calls 
for  the  best  teachers  and  the  best  appliances.  You 
will  be  asked  to  do  that  work  with  appliances  that 
are  inadequate  and  teachers  that  are  underpaid.  You 
will  be  called  upon  daily  to  solve  problems  that  are 
in  their  nature  incapable  of  solution,  and  to  answer 
questions  when  the  data  on  which  such  answers 
should  be  based  are  incomplete.  You  will  be  asked 
to  make  a  choice,  and  often  a  momentous  choice, 
between  alternative  lines  of  policy  where  the  out- 
come in  either  case  is  uncertain ;  and  to  carry  out  for 


182     VASSAR  COLLEGE   CELEBRATION 

months  or  years  in  the  face  of  discouragement  the 
policy  thus  chosen  while  it  remains  undetermined 
whether  the  choice  was  right  or  wrong.  You  will  be 
asked  to  reconcile  conservatives  and  progressives, 
theorists  and  practitioners,  advocates  of  culture  and 
advocates  of  efficiency.  You  will  be  required  to  work 
hard  for  thirty-six  hours  out  of  every  twenty-four, 
and  to  take  at  the  same  time  the  repose  that  is 
needed  to  preserve  your  clearness  of  judgment  and 
your  serenity  of  temper.  You  will,  in  short,  be  com- 
pelled to  combine  in  your  own  proper  person  the  ser- 
vice of  Martha,  who  was  cumbered  with  household 
cares,  and  that  of  Mary,  who  thought  only  of  her 
Lord. 

Such  is  the  task.  And  what  is  the  reward?  Rus- 
kin  has  said  somewhere,  '  *  If  you  wish  to  do  your 
best,  choose  a  task  that  is  within  your  powers.  If 
you  wish  to  do  better  than  your  best,  choose  a  task 
that  is  beyond  them."  To  you  we  look  with  con- 
fidence to  do  better  than  your  best.  Let  me  con- 
gratulate you.  Sir,  on  having  chosen  a  task  that  is 
beyond  your  powers;  a  task  which  involves  mis- 
takes, but  a  task  which  will  make  the  very  failures 
of  to-day  pave  the  way  for  undreamed-of  successes 
to-morrow.  Yours  will  be  the  reward  of  the  master 
builder,  whose  work  grows  under  his  hands  like 
a  living  thing.  If  I  may  borrow  a  figure  from  an 


THE  INAUGURAL  CEREMONIES       183 

earlier  speaker,  yours  will  be  the  privilege,  when 
you  have  been  toiling  with  worn  hands  and  with 
eyes  downcast  at  the  stones  of  the  altar,  to  see  that, 
after  you  have  worked  on  the  stones,  that  which  once 
was  a  shoot  has  grown  up  into  a  tree.  Nor  does  the 
reward  lie  in  the  work  alone.  There  is  an  equal  or 
greater  reward  in  the  devotion  of  your  fellow-work- 
ers. For  when  they  see  you  doing  better  than  your 
best,  they  too  will  learn  to  do  better  than  their  best. 
Until  a  man  has  occupied  a  position  like  yours  he 
hardly  can  conceive  the  depths  of  loyalty  of  the  stu- 
dents and  teachers  and  graduates  of  the  college,  or 
the  generosity  with  which  those  who  seem  to  have 
least  to  spare  of  time  or  strength  or  money  give 
of  what  they  have.  This  loyalty,  as  I  can  testify, 
by  grateful,  though  brief,  experience  in  Yale — you 
have  given ;  this  it  will  be  yours  to  receive. 

The  ancient  Greeks  gave  to  the  greatest  of  their 
princes  the  title  '  *  Leader  of  men. ' '  You,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, are  a  leader  of  men.  And  I  know  of  no  body 
in  this  whole  wide  world  whom  one  might  be  more 
proud  to  lead  than  those  who  for  half  a  century  have 
been  learning  to  love  and  work  for  Vassar  College, 
and  who  set  their  faith  in  its  future.  Of  the  inher- 
itance bequeathed  to  you  by  your  honored  predeces- 
sor, there  is  nothing  more  precious  than  the  loyalty 
which  they  transfer  to  you.  Your  work,  Mr.  Presi- 


184     VASSAR  COLLEGE   CELEBRATION 

dent,  is  their  work.  Your  faith  shall  be  their  faith. 
To  you  it  is  given  to  build  better  than  we  any  of 
us  now  know,  because  you  have  the  support  of  hun- 
dreds and  thousands  through  the  country  to  whom 
the  name  of  Vassar  is  and  always  will  be  dear,  and 
who  will  follow  its  president  wherever  he  leads. 


The  Intercollegiate  Student  Conference 


The  Intercollegiate  Student 
Conference 

THE  intercollegiate  student  conference  met  in 
two  open  sessions  on  Monday  and  Tuesday 
mornings  of  Anniversary  Week  to  discuss  a  ques- 
tion of  common  student  interest,  —  the  function  of 
non-academic  activities  in  college  life.  Fifty-three 
delegates  were  present,  representing  twenty-eight 
men's,  women's,  and  co-educational  colleges  and 
universities.  Many  of  the  delegates  had  been  invited 
to  take  a  definite  part  in  the  programme ;  all  had 
been  asked  to  join  in  the  discussions.  After  welcom- 
ing the  visiting  delegates  to  the  conference  and  to 
the  anniversary  celebration,  Phebe  Briggs,  Chair- 
man of  the  Intercollegiate  Student  Conference  Com- 
mittee, introduced  Irmarita  Kellers,  President  of  the 
Vassar  College  Students  Association,  as  chairman 
of  the  meetings.  Eleanor  B.  Taylor  of  Vassar  Col- 
lege opened  the  general  subject  for  discussion  by  a 
speech  on  *' Extra  Curriculum." 

Miss  Taylor  pictured  the  strict  regimen  of  col- 
lege life  in  a  mediaeval  university,  where  the  stu- 
dent's time  was  given  almost  without  interruption 
to  his  studies,  and  where  recreation  consisted  simply 
in  walking  within  the  college  precincts  and  in  con- 
versation. Nor  was  this  exacting  routine  peculiar  to 


188     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  Middle  Ages,  said  Miss  Taylor.  Even  at  Har- 
vard in  1828  the  good  student  was  described  as  hav- 
ing no  proper  distractions  from  his  academic  work, 
no  outside  society,  no  legal  possibility  of  an  evening 
in  Boston ;  he  was  not  even  offered  easy  access  to 
the  university  library,  which  seemed  then  to  be  con- 
sidered a  place  of  recreation.  The  contrast  with  stu- 
dent life  of  to-day  is  easy  to  draw.  Ninety  per  cent 
of  the  student's  time  is  said  to  be  spent  outside  the 
class-room,  and  a  large  portion  of  these  hours  is 
occupied  with  non-curricular  activities.  Yet  the  new 
order  has  been  of  comparatively  recent  growth.  In 
the  first  ''Prospectus "  of  Vassar  College,  issued  in 
1865,  debating  societies  were  mentioned  as  ' '  utterly 
incongruous  and  out  of  taste."  To-day  we  have 
debating  societies  in  all  of  our  colleges,  and  inter- 
collegiate debates  between  many  of  them.  The 
first  student  publication  at  Vassar  was  a  four  page 
annual.  Now  a  weekly  and  a  monthly  as  well  as  a 
large  annual  are  published,  and  many  colleges  have 
dailies.  With  the  radical  changes  which  student  life 
outside  the  class-room  has  undergone  has  come  a 
change  of  attitude  on  the  part  of  both  students  and 
faculties.  Non-curricular  activities  are  no  longer  con- 
sidered a  mere  pastime  for  the  gay  and  idle,  some- 
thing apart  from  serious  work.  The  most  earnest 
students  enter  into  them,  and  faculties  regard  them 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE     189 

as  a  positive  good.  President  Meiklejohn  of  Am- 
herst has  said  that  they  are  actually  essential  for 
a  full  and  complete  rounding  out  of  student  life. 
The  conference,  then,  is  an  important  one,  because 
it  deals  with  things  that  take  up  a  large  share  of  the 
student's  time  and  energy ;  it  is  also  a  hopeful  one, 
for  the  attitude  of  both  students  and  faculties  toward 
its  subject  is  that  of  increasing  recognition. 

To  create  a  basis  for  general  discussion  the  pur- 
poses and  working  practice  of  typical  modern  non- 
academic  activities  were  then  described  in  a  series 
of  speeches  by  visiting  delegates.  Under  the  cap- 
tion '' Professor  Baker,"  WilHam  C.  Boyden,  Jr., 
discussed  dramatics  at  Harvard,  throwing  particu- 
lar emphasis  upon  the  experimental  writing,  stag- 
ing, and  acting  which  is  done  in  connection  with  the 
courses  given  by  Professor  Baker  in  the  drama,  and 
in  the  Harvard  Dramatic  Club.  Professor  Baker  acts 
as  a  kind  of  father-confessor  to  the  club,  which  was 
founded  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  the  writing 
and  production  of  original  plays.  That  it  has  fulfilled 
something  of  its  function  is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
such  successful  wr iters  as  Percy  MacKaye,  Herman 
Hagedorn,  Edward  Sheldon,  and  Eld  ward  Knob- 
lauch, gave  their  undergraduate  plays  under  its  aus- 
pices or  in  Professor  Baker's  Forty-Seven  Work- 
shop. In  the  Forty-Seven  Workshop  student  plays 


190     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

which  are  imperfect  or  incomplete  are  revised  and 
finished,  and  then  acted  by  members  of  the  Dra- 
matic Club  or  by  Boston  amateurs,  each  production 
being  coached  by  Professor  Baker  and  the  author. 
Thus  the  author  gains  the  most  complete  kind  of 
practical  experience.  Besides  the  plays  so  produced 
there  are  other  forms  of  dramatics  at  Harvard.  The 
Hasty  Pudding  Club  and  the  Pi  Eta  give  plays  each 
year;  German  and  French  plays  are  given  by  the 
language  clubs ;  and  there  is  a  Shaksperian  revival. 
But  the  work  done  with  Professor  Baker  is  by  far  the 
most  important  and  the  most  serious  in  the  univer- 
sity. Through  the  Dramatic  Club  and  the  Forty- 
Seven  Workshop  unusual  opportunities  are  given 
to  the  undergraduates  for  free  experimental  work  in 
play-making  and  play-producing ;  and  with  the  new 
dramatic  building  now  in  contemplation,  in  which 
it  is  planned  to  have  a  revolving  stage  and  all  the 
accessories  of  the  new  stage-craft,  dramatics  at  Har- 
vard should  prove  a  vital  factor  in  the  development 
of  American  drama. 

Like  Harvard  dramatics,  dramatics  and  pagean- 
try at  Wellesley  furnish  abundant  opportunity  for 
original  undergraduate  experiment,  besides  fulfill- 
ing certain  social  functions,  said  Dorothy  Rhodes 
of  Wellesley.  The  Barns  wallows  Association  was 
organized  to  provide  a  social  centre  in  the  college  by 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE     191 

giving  amateur  plays,  and  thus  to  promote  com- 
munity spirit.  Each  year  the  Barnswallows  put  on 
a  number  of  these  plays,  which  are  made  as  sponta- 
neous as  possible  and  require  few  rehearsals.  More 
serious  effort  is  devoted  to  the  out-of-door  produc- 
tions, which  include  types  of  the  poetic  drama, 
Shakspere  plays,  and  Greek  plays.  Recently  a  col- 
lege operetta  has  been  instituted,  for  the  parts  in 
which  any  student  in  the  college  is  allowed  to  try; 
and  an  original  pageant  is  produced  each  year  for 
Wellesley  Tree  Day,  in  which  every  member  of  the 
college  actually  takes  part.  This  pageant  is  given 
out  of  doors  at  rhododendron  time,  when  the  flowers 
make  a  gorgeous  color  background,  and  itself  forms 
a  beautiful  and  significant  picture.  Miss  Rhodes  de- 
scribed one  of  the  elaborate  productions  of  the  pa- 
geant which  are  given  every  four  years.  The  Tree 
Day  Mistress  first  presented  the  myth  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche  in  a  poetic  prologue,  and  there  followed 
an  impressive  color-processional  of  flower-bearers, 
musicians  with  silver  harps,  armed  warriors,  and 
priests,  who  broke  forth  into  a  hymn  to  Venus.  The 
myth  was  acted  by  picture-dancing,  the  parts  being 
taken  by  seniors,  and  was  followed  by  a  freshman 
myth  of  lighter  character,  which  showed  children, 
sprites,  and  gnomes.  It  is  upon  the  picture-dancing 
that  most  thought  and  care  are  spent.  A  member  of 


192     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  faculty  always  coaches  the  dancing,  but  the  con- 
ception, the  poetic  lines,  the  dramatic  arrangement, 
and  the  costuming  are  wholly  the  result  of  inde- 
pendent undergraduate  effort. 

Press  work  in  New  York  City  as  carried  on  by 
undergraduates  of  New  York  University  was  out- 
lined by  William  K.  Doggett.  College  activities  and, 
at  times,  outside  events  are  covered  by  the  under- 
graduate reporters.  All  the  work  is  done  under  su- 
pervision. A  senior  manager  organizes  the  freshmen 
interested  in  newspaper  writing;  these  men  learn 
their  technique  through  practice,  and  are  finally  rec- 
ommended by  the  manager  to  the  various  city  edi- 
tors if  their  work  is  acceptable.  Once  on  a  newspaper 
staff,  the  student  reporters  receive  further  practical 
instruction  through  observation  of  the  changes  and 
revisions  of  their  copy  made  by  experienced  news- 
paper men.  Such  papers  as  the  ''Tribune,"  the 
''Times,"  the  "Press,"  the  "Herald,"  take  and 
pay  for  material  from  undergraduates.  The  value 
of  the  work  apart  from  the  remuneration  lies  in  its 
practical  training. 

A  university  daily  offers  practical  training  in 
news- writing  and  editorship,  but  it  also  fulfills  other 
important  functions,  according  to  Donald  O.  Stew- 
art of  the  "Yale  Daily  News."  This  paper  gives  to 
the  college  the  service  of  a  general  bulletin  board ; 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  193 

it  provides  accurate  news  of  the  college;  and  its 
editorial  columns  help  to  shape  college  opinion. 
Further,  through  personal  contact  with  the  large 
number  of  freshman  competitors  —  ** heelers"  — 
the  editorial  board  of  the  daily  is  able  to  help  these 
men  to  find  their  best  place  in  the  university.  Work 
on  the* 'News"  not  only  benefits  the  individual;  it 
is  a  social  factor. 

The  general  purpose  to  give  college  news  in  a  con- 
venient and  accurate  form  to  the  college  community 
was  also  emphasized  by  Dorothy  Eaton  of  Smith 
in  speaking  of  the  "Smith  College  Weekly."  The 
Weekly"  at  Smith  has  proved  itself  a  necessary  ad- 
j  unc  t  of  college  life .  Co-ordinate  with  the ' '  Weekly , ' ' 
the  *  *  Monthly ' '  takes  its  place  as  a  means  of  stim- 
ulating undergraduate  literary  production;  the 
"Monthly"  also  attempts  to  serve  as  a  tie  between 
the  student  body  and  the  alumnae,  and  to  make  con- 
nections with  students  in  other  colleges.  That  the 
magazine  is  fulfilling  its  purpose  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  known  among  outsiders  for  its  origi- 
nality and  sanity,  that  one- third  of  its  subscriptions 
come  from  non-students,  and  that  it  is  able  to  sup- 
port itself  without  the  subsidy  of  advertising. 

Practical  knowledge  of  parliamentary  law  and 
training  in  oral  presentation  of  argument  are  the 
special  aims  of  the  Mount  Holyoke  Debating  Soci- 


194     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ety .  Marion  Truesdell  explained  the  close,  intensive, 
scholarly  work  done  by  committees  and  debaters  in 
preparation  for  interchapter  debates  within  the  col- 
lege and  for  intercollegiate  debates  with  Wellesley 
and  Vassar.  Holyoke  favors  free  student-faculty 
co-operation  in  debating  as  productive  of  increased 
excellence  and  skill,  but  in  the  work  for  the  inter- 
collegiate debates  such  co-operation  has  not  been 
utilized  because  of  the  agreement  made  by  the 
colleges  involved,  Vassar  in  particular  wishing  not 
to  depart  from  its  tradition  of  wholly  independent 
management.  Interest  in  debating  at  Holyoke  has 
lately  been  stimulated  not  only  by  the  triangular 
intercollegiate  debates,  but  by  a  money  prize,  —  the 
interest  on  one  thousand  dollars,  — to  be  offered  each 
year  by  the  class  of  1890  to  the  student  who  shows 
the  greatest  proficiency  in  debating. 

Accounts  of  the  Williams  Good  Government  Club 
and  of  the  RadcliiFe  Civics  Club  illustrated  inde- 
pendent constructive  work  by  undergraduates  in 
the  fields  of  sociology,  economics,  and  politics.  The 
Williams  Good  Government  Club  takes  an  active 
part  in  community  life  and  interests.  A  vigorous 
anti-saloon  movement  is  being  pushed  by  the  club  in 
the  neighboring  town  of  North  Adams.  A  law-en- 
forcement committee  sees  that  reforms  and  bettered 
conditions  are  actually  maintained, — for  example. 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  195 

forcing  the  prosecution  of  violators  of  the  laws  with 
regard  to  the  sale  of  liquor  to  minors,  and  of  the  cig- 
arette law.  Another  committee  is  investigating  the 
milk  supply  around  Williamstown.  An  apple-day 
committee  arranges  an  apple  exhibit  for  the  farmers 
in  the  North  Berkshires,  at  which  expert  pomolo- 
gists  speak  on  the  improved  methods  of  apple  cul- 
ture. A  department  of  the  club  conducts  classes 
for  foreigners  in  neighboring  towns,  trying  in  par- 
ticular to  give  instruction  which  will  lead  to  good 
citizenship.  Still  another  has  inaugurated  the  Big 
Brother  movement  in  Williamstown.  Well-known 
outside  speakers  on  social  and  political  subjects  are 
brought  by  the  club  to  the  college.  Between  three  and 
four  fifths  of  the  Williams  students  belong  to  the 
Good  Government  Club,  said  Meredith  Wood,  who 
described  its  activities.  Its  purpose  is  to  create  an  in- 
telligent interest  in  the  social,  economic,  and  political 
life  of  the  country,  and  to  tackle  such  immediate 
problems  as  can  be  solved  or  bettered  by  actual  work. 
If  the  Radcliffe  Civics  Club  had  a  motto,  that 
motto  would  probably  be  one  prevalent  in  military 
circles  to-day, — *'Be  prepared," — said  Rosamond 
Eliot  of  RadclifFe.  The  club  seeks  to  prepare  the 
undergraduates  of  RadclifFe  to  become  active,  intel- 
ligent, useful  citizens,  leaders  in  the  community  to 
which  they  are  going  after  graduation.  The  inter- 


196     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ests  of  the  club  are  political.  It  unites  in  a  single 
active  body  the  undergraduate  suffragist,  anti-suf- 
fragist, and  socialist  chapters,  college  chapters  of  the 
Women's  Municipal  League  of  Boston  and  of  the 
Women's  Peace  Party,  and  a  Debating  Committee, 
co-ordinating  and  enlarging  the  activities  of  all  these 
organizations.  Like  the  Williams  Good  Government 
Club,  the  Civics  Club  brings  important  speakers  to 
the  undergraduates ;  debates  are  arranged  between 
its  members ;  and  open  meetings  are  held  at  which 
Harvard  professors  are  asked  to  lead  the  discussions. 
By  these  means  all  persons  interested  in  questions 
of  the  day  can  gain  new  knowledge,  new  points  of 
view,  and  can  learn  self-expression.  The  club  does 
not,  however,  take  part  in  active  affairs ;  its  purposes 
are  those  of  stimulus  and  instruction  rather  than 
of  practical  politics. 

Comradeship  and  service  were  emphasized  by 
Grace  E.  Mong  of  Oberlin  as  the  object  of  the  Ober- 
lin  Young  Women's  Christian  Association.  Much 
of  the  energy  of  the  association  is  devoted  to  practical 
work.  Social  and  athletic  clubs  have  been  organized 
at  a  local  settlement.  Camp-fire  groups  in  the  Oberlin 
High  School  are  led  by  members  of  the  association. 
Sunday-school  work  is  undertaken  in  the  town  and 
in  neighboring  rural  districts.  Necessaries  of  life  are 
distributed  to  poor  families.  An  employment  com- 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  197 

mittee  helps  students  who  wish  to  be  financially  in- 
dependent during  their  college  course  ;  and  the  asso- 
ciation assists  in  the  financial  campaign  of  the  Na- 
tional Young  Women's  Christian  Association  each 
year.  The  association  also  conducts  religious  meet- 
ings in  the  college,  and  arranges  Bible  and  mission 
study  classes.  Outside  speakers  are  frequently  asked 
to  lead  the  meetings.  The  effects  of  the  Christian 
Association  are  far-reaching,  for  it  seeks  to  make  it- 
self a  force  not  only  among  the  undergraduates,  but 
in  every  community  where  these  undergraduates 
may  find  themselves. 

As  offering  training  in  self-control,  self-direction, 
and  democracy,  and  opening  up  horizons  of  useful- 
ness and  ability,  student  self-government  is  one  of 
the  most  important  of  undergraduate  activities  at 
Barnard,  said  Carol  Lorenz,  who  explained  the  pur- 
poses of  the  Barnard  Undergraduate  Association. 
At  Barnard  a  council  which  is  responsible  to  the 
Undergraduate  Association  and  to  the  faculty  meets 
weekly  to  administer  the  undergraduate  business  of 
the  college.  This  council  directs  the  large  policies 
of  the  student  body,  it  keeps  the  machinery  of  the 
smaller  organized  activities  running  smoothly,  it 
maintains  the  honor  system.  But  the  association  is 
coming  to  feel  that  most  of  these  matters  may  now 
be  taken  for  granted,  said  Miss  Lorenz.  They  have 


198     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

to  do  simply  with  the  background  against  which 
the  higher  issues  of  college  life  are  presented.  The 
students  have  other  interests  than  those  in  college 
sports,  clubs,  plays,  and  publications ;  they  have, 
supposedly,  a  vital  relation  to  their  academic  work. 
Why,  then,  should  they  not  have  something  to 
say  about  the  conditions  of  that  work,  the  subjects 
offered,  the  subjects  required,  the  conditions  of  en- 
trance to  college?  The  Barnard  students  believe  that 
they  have  a  point  of  view  which  is  valuable,  and 
which  should  be  officially  recognized.  Last  year  the 
Barnard  Student  Council  optimistically  proposed  to 
the  faculty  that  they  admit  a  senior  member  of  the 
council  to  the  Faculty  Committee  on  Instruction. 
While  this  step  has  not  been  taken,  an  approach  at 
least  has  been  made  toward  a  larger  form  of  self- 
government.  A  Bible  course  has  been  added  to  the 
curriculum  pardy  because  of  a  recommendation  of 
the  Student  Council.  Recently  the  council's  plan  for 
academic  credit  for  certain  non-academic  activities 
readily  connected  with  work  in  the  Economics  De- 
partment has  met  the  approval  of  the  dean  and  of. 
the  department,  and  seems  to  be  in  a  fair  way  to  be 
accepted  by  the  faculty  as  a  whole.  Committees  have 
been  appointed  by  the  Student  Council  to  investi- 
gate academic  affairs  of  special  interest  to  the  stu- 
dents, such  as  cut  systems,  preceptorial  systems. 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  199 

and  forms  of  entrance  requirements ;  and  the  results 
of  these  investigations  are  to  be  submitted  to  the 
faculty  with  a  formulation  of  the  students'  point  of 
view. 

But  an  undergraduate  association  must  extend  its 
scope  still  further;  as  the  broadest  student  group, 
it  should  look  to  the  students'  future  usefulness,  said 
Miss  Lorenz.  The  college  prepares  for  future  life, 
and  the  undergraduates  have  constantly  in  mind  the 
question  of  their  later  activities.  It  has  seemed,  there- 
fore, logical  and  appropriate  for  the  self-government 
association  at  Barnard  to  show  its  members  some 
of  the  opportunities  open  to  them  after  graduation, 
that  they  may  be  directed  into  useful  service.  A  vo- 
cational committee  has  been  appointed,  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  manage  a  vocational  bulletin  board,  to 
keep  a  file  of  vocational  schools,  to  plan  for  a  series 
of  meetings  which  will  be  addressed  by  women 
who  have  succeeded  in  their  special  vocations,  and 
to  run  a  series  of  articles  in  the  college  weekly  on 
vocational  opportunities  for  women.  In  general  the 
Undergraduate  Association  at  Barnard  tries  to  meet 
and  handle  the  larger  problems  common  to  the  or- 
ganized student  body ;  and  it  believes  that  it  is  trav- 
eling toward  achievement. 

The  accounts  of  typical  non-academic  activities 
were  followed  by  speeches  which  focused  opinion 


200     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

as  to  the  ideal  functions  common  to  these  activi- 
ties. In  a  speech  on  ' '  Breadth  versus  Depth  "  B.  B. 
Atterbury  of  Princeton  explained  that  the  problem 
of  non-academic  activities  in  such  a  university  as 
Princeton,  which  might  be  called  a  big,  little  col- 
lege, had  at  times  been  a  difficult  one ;  the  students 
have  tried  to  carry  on  all  the  activities  supported 
by  the  larger  universities,  and  the  result  has  some- 
times been  that  too  much  emphasis  has  been  placed 
upon  extra-curricular  as  opposed  to  intra-curricular 
work.  But  the  attitude  of  the  students  is  changing, 
Mr.  Atterbury  said.  The  older  men  are  attempting 
to  impress  upon  the  younger  students  the  fact  that 
their  non-academic  activities  must  rest  upon  a  firm 
foundation  of  scholarship, — scholarship  as  secur- 
ing depth  of  development  for  the  future.  At  the  same 
time  they  try  to  show  the  younger  men  that  non- 
academic  activities  make  a  distinct  contribution  to 
the  student's  life.  These  oifer  breadth  of  develop- 
ment. The  two  forms  of  activity  make  college  life 
complete.  Non-academic  activities  are  essentially 
practical;  they  may  often  be  a  direct  preparation  for 
later  work  after  graduation.  They  provide  play  and 
recreation.  They  teach  the  student  a  strict  economy 
of  time  and  energy,  since  economy  is  necessary  if 
outside  activities  are  to  be  carried  on.  They  invite 
free  competition ;  latent  possibilities  in  the  student 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  201 

are  often  brought  out,  and  the  effect  is  beneficial 
both  for  the  modest  and  retiring,  and  for  those  of 
the  opposite  type.  But  perhaps  most  important  of  all 
the  effects  of  these  activities  is  the  experience  which 
comes  from  working  with  fellow-students.  It  is  not 
by  merely  living  together  or  by  casual  contacts  that 
students  learn  to  know  each  other  best:  it  is  by 
working  together.  The  chief  problem  for  the  stu- 
dent becomes  that  of  wise  choice  among  the  many 
opportunities  open  to  him.  If  curricular  work  offers 
depth,  and  non-curricular  work  offers  breadth,  then 
in  general  the  student  should  play  off  one  interest 
against  another;  he  should  so  choose  his  outside 
activities  that  they  will  provide  him  with  the  wid- 
est and  most  varied  experience.  With  many  inter- 
ests on  the  one  hand  and  with  thorough  training  on 
the  other,  he  can  approximate  the  ideal  type  of  the 
*' all-round"  man. 

Maxwell  E.  McDowell  of  Colgate  discussed 
The  Problem  of  Leisure, ' '  attempting,  as  he  said, 
to  discover  the  single  definite  need  which  all  non- 
academic  activities  fill.  The  college  student  is  given 
leisure,  which  he  spends  pretty  much  at  his  own 
discretion ;  a  great  deal  of  it  is  certainly  spent  in  non- 
curricular  work.  But  the  problem  of  leisure  is  a  per- 
petual problem,  one  which  presents  itself  in  mature 
life  as  well  as  in  college.  Many  business  men  lack 


202     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

the  ability  to  use  their  leisure  for  real  relaxation  and 
pleasure.  The  ideal  function  of  non-academic  activ- 
ities in  college  is  to  teach  the  college  man  to  play 
properly;  that  is,  to  use  his  leisure  for  a  pleasurable 
change  of  occupation.  Non-academic  activities  can 
locate  the  student's  interest  in  some  definite  subject 
or  line  which  will  not  only  broaden  his  experience 
while  he  is  in  college,  but  will  later  become  a  ''re- 
juvenating hobby."  Interest  in  sports,  writing, dra- 
matics, even  a  concern  in  poHtics  among  older  men, 
often  proves  to  have  its  origin  in  student  activities. 
The  problem  of  leisure  for  the  college  student  is  the 
problem  of  so  using  these  activities  that  they  will 
become  of  benefit  to  him  in  later  life. 

That  there  is  no  radical  difference  between  aca- 
demic and  non-academic  activities  was  the  point 
urged  by  Lewis  W.  Douglas  of  Amherst,  who  spoke 
on  ' '  The  Relation  of  Extra-Curriculum  Activities  to 
Scholarship."  The  function  of  the  college  is  to  give 
a  broad  intellectual  stimulus,  an  acting  philosophy 
of  life,  a  fundamental  principle  upon  which  its  stu- 
dents can  act,  and  with  which  they  can  co-ordinate  all 
their  other  principles.  Extra-curriculum  activities, 
then,  must  be  kept  consistent  with  this  general  func- 
tion. Many  non-academic  activities,  such  as  debat- 
ing, dramatics,  political  clubs,  and  work  on  publica- 
tions, merely  continue  the  work  of  the  class-room. 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  203 

Obviously  these  are  not  inconsistent  with  the  gen- 
eral purpose  of  the  college.  Others,  such  as  student 
government  associations,  with  their  regulation  of 
the  honor  system  and  their  control  of  minor  clubs 
and  organizations,  shape  the  conditions  under  which 
academic  work  is  done.  Here  there  is  a  clear  con- 
nection between  curricular  and  non-curricular  work. 
Even  athletic  activities  have  their  direct  effect  upon 
the  scholastic  side  of  college  life,  in  so  far  as  they 
are  wholesome  and  beneficial  to  the  physical  condi- 
tion of  college  students.  Non-academic  activities  are 
simply  practical,  supplementary  experiences,  and 
as  such  are  wholly  in  harmony  with  the  purposes 
for  which  the  college  is  organized.  They,  too,  offer 
intellectual  stimulus  and  contribute  toward  an  act- 
ing philosophy  of  life.  But  the  exact  training  which 
scholarship  gives  is  the  first  purpose  of  the  college, 
and  non-curricular  activities  must  be  kept  subor- 
dinate to  this  purpose.  They  must  remain  supple- 
mentary experiences,  said  Mr.  Douglas,  or  they  have 
gone  beyond  their  legitimate  scope. 

After  a  discussion  of  practical  values  in  dramatics 
by  Mary  Denney  of  Goucher  College,  which  again 
stressed  the  definite  training  offered  by  non-curric- 
ular work,  and  an  account  of  the  Cornell  women's 
vocational  conference  by  Helen  Spalding,  there  fol- 
lowed a  short  discussion  of  the  honor  system  as  es- 


204     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

sential  to  tfie  fabric  of  student  life.  Closing  the  ses- 
sion ,  Mary  B .  Guy  of  Vassar  College  spoke  on  ^ '  The 
College  Democracy."  Miss  Guy  agreed  with  Mr. 
Douglas  that  the  line  between  curricular  and  non- 
curricular  work  could  not  be  definitely  drawn.  It  is 
impossible  to  say  that  any  sole  object  is  attained  by 
the  one,  or  that  any  part  of  our  training  is  neglected 
by  the  other.  As  was  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Douglas, 
the  two  often  deal  with  the  same  materials.  Non- 
academic  work  is  sometimes  said  to  offer  freer  play 
to  individual  initiative  than  does  the  academic  work, 
but  in  the  class-room  more  and  more  opportunity  is 
being  given  for  the  play  of  individual  initiative.  The 
difference  is  simply  one  of  degree :  in  the  class-room 
the  work  is  carried  on  under  the  general  leadership 
of  the  instructor ;  while  non-academic  activities  are 
managed  pretty  much  according  to  the  independent 
wish  and  judgment  of  the  student.  Together  within 
the  unit  of  the  college,  with  similar  aims  and  pur- 
poses, the  two  forms  of  student  activity  produce 
the  elements  of  a  democracy, — if  democracy  may 
be  taken  to  mean  that  situation  in  which  equal  op- 
portunity is  given  to  all  freely  to  develop  their  best 
powers.  So  far  as  the  curriculum  is  concerned,  all 
students  meet  the  same  requirements  and  enjoy  the 
same  privileges.  Living  conditions  are  practically 
the  same  for  all ;  the  influence  of  wealth  tends  to  be 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  205 

negligible.  In  the  open  field  of  non -academic  work, 
through  sports,  dramatics,  writing  for  publications, 
debating,  and  the  rest,  this  equality  is  still  further 
extended.  Each  student  is  given  opportunity  for 
experiment  in  the  field  which  most  interests  him. 
He  enters  freely  into  competition  with  his  fellow- 
students.  He  may  develop  practically  at  will  his 
own  peculiar  interests  and  abilities,  carrying  on  and 
applying  the  work  of  the  class-room  or  departing 
from  it,  as  he  chooses.  With  few  of  the  complicat- 
ing conditions  which  prevent  the  realization  of  equal 
opportunity  in  the  world  outside,  the  college,  with 
all  its  activities,  academic  and  non-academic,  serves 
as  a  small  working-model  of  democracy,  and  so  as 
an  ideal  training-ground  for  future  citizenship. 

At  the  second  session  of  the  conference,  three  broad 
questions  of  policy  important  in  the  management 
of  non-academic  activities  were  discussed :  the  de- 
sirability of  professional  coaching ;  the  proper  basis 
of  membership  for  student  organizations ;  and  the 
desirability  of  academic  credit  for  non-academic 
work.  In  opening  the  discussions  Elizabeth  M. 
Heath  of  Vassar  College  urged  that  these  questions 
be  considered  in  the  light  of  the  essential  purposes 
of  non-academic  pursuits.  The  first  session  of  the 
conference  had  brought  forth  certain  fundamental 


206     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ideas  concerning  these  purposes,  she  said.  Non-aca- 
demic activities  serve  not  only  as  a  laboratory  of  ex- 
periment, not  only  as  a  supplemental  arc  rounding 
out  the  circle  of  a  normal  life,  not  only  as  a  safety 
valve  for  surplus  energies, — taken  with  the  aca- 
demic activities,  with  no  strict  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  two,  they  express  the  higher  interests 
of  the  student  community.  They  provide  opportu- 
nity for  the  use  of  the  student's  best  powers.  Does 
the  student,  then,  develop  his  or  her  highest  capa- 
bilities through  wholly  independent  work,  or  under 
the  specific  training  offered  by  a  professional  coach 
or  a  faculty  adviser?  The  basis  of  membership  in 
student  organizations  has  its  direct  effect  upon  the 
student's  freedom  to  follow  a  line  of  special  inter- 
est. What,  then,  are  the  best  principles  of  member- 
ship in  these  organizations?  The  premium  of  aca- 
demic credit,  if  placed  upon  non-academic  work, 
would  have  a  decided  influence  upon  the  decisions 
of  the  student  in  the  choice  of  pursuits.  Would  such 
a  premium  work  for  the  best  interests  of  the  student 
and  of  the  college?  Delegates  to  the  conference  were 
invited  to  bring  to  bear  upon  these  problems  the 
results  of  their  own  experience. 

In  an  argument  against  the  employment  of  the 
professional  coach  in  dramatics,  Richard  Parkhurst 
of  Dartmouth  emphasized  the  difference  between 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  207 

the  professional  and  the  college  stage.  The  profes- 
sional stage,  he  said,  was  primarily  a  money-mak- 
ing venture ;  the  college  stage  should  be  educational. 
At  Dartmouth  dramatics  under  a  professional  coach 
have  proved  to  be  far  from  educational.  The  direc- 
tions of  the  coach  were  invariably  superficial,  the 
actors  followed  these  blindly,  individual  initiative 
was  destroyed,  real  dramatic  interest  but  shghtly 
stimulated,  and  the  results  were  stereotyped  per- 
formances of  no  artistic  value  whatsoever.  Actors 
would  lumber  about  the  boards  in  the  regimentals  of 
the  chorus  lady,  fondly  imagining  that  by  using  the 
motions  the  coach  had  taught  them  they  would  im- 
press their  friends  with  the  realism  of  their  acting. 
The  audience  howled  with  glee  when  some  favorite 
was  discovered,  and  the  remark  was  often  heard  that 
the  whole  thing  was  ''just  too  funny  for  words."  Is 
there  any  college  dramatic  ideal  in  this?  Rather  a 
college  boy  performance,  with  a  total  waste  of  effort 
and  a  total  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  possibilities 
of  the  college  stage.  Two  years  ago  a  new  policy 
was  inaugurated.  Under  the  direction  of  an  under- 
graduate manager  and  an  undergraduate  producer 
the  student  actors  were  allowed  to  develop  their  own 
parts.  Plays  presented  on  the  metropolitan  stage  and 
musical  revues  of  a  high  order  began  to  appear  on 
the  average  of  once  a  month  on  the  stage  of  Web- 


208     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ster  Hall.  Creditable  talent  has  come  to  light,  and  to- 
day dramatics  at  Dartmouth  are  the  premier  non- 
academic  activity.  The  new  policy  takes  the  harder 
way,  but  the  undergraduate  is  out  for  bigger  things 
than  finished  gesture  and  perfect  enunciation:  he  is 
out  for  training  in  the  school  of  practical  experience, 
and  trained  in  such  a  school  he  can  and  does  pro- 
duce intelligent,  capable,  and  artistic  work. 

James  A.  Garfield  of  Williams  supported  Mr. 
Parkhurst  in  a  criticism  of  the  professional  element 
in  the  colleges,  saying  that  professionalism  was  not 
compatible  with  the  present  day  spirit  of  individual 
responsibility,  thought,  and  initiative  among  col- 
lege students.  Mr.  Garfield  believed  the  first  session 
of  the  conference  had  shown  that  students  were  no 
longer  willing  to  remain  passive,  leaving  the  man- 
agement of  college  life  wholly  in  the  hands  of  others ; 
there  is  now  a  movement  toward  complete  under- 
graduate assumption  of  undergraduate  affairs.  The 
new  spirit  of  independence  is  fundamental.  But  pro- 
fessionalism means  dependence  rather  than  inde- 
pendence ;  individual  initiative  is  surrendered  to  out- 
side control.  Moreover,  with  professionaHsm  is  bound 
to  come  the  tendency  to  make  curriculum  work  sec- 
ondary rather  than  primary  in  the  student's  mind. 
A  high-grade  professional  accomplishment  becomes 
the  thing.  On  the  other  hand  faculty  co-operation 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  209 

offers  stimulus  without  hampering  initiative,  be- 
cause the  teacher  realizes  that  the  best  form  of 
training  for  the  student  is  that  which  forces  him  to 
work  out  his  problems  for  himself.  The  teacher  is 
the  adviser ;  the  professional  coach  is  the  master  or 
informer. 

Dorothy  Kyburg  of  Mount  Holyoke  in  a  later 
speech  also  urged  faculty  co-operation  as  desirable, 
not  only  because  of  its  benefits  to  the  student,  but 
because  the  faculty  enjoy  the  opportunities  given 
for  self-expression  and  recreation ;  and  experience  at 
Swarthmore  further  bore  out  the  general  contention 
in  favor  of  faculty  coaching  as  opposed  to  profes- 
sional coaching,  according  to  the  account  of  John  E. 
Orchard  of  Swarthmore.  Dramatics,  debating,  and 
the  productions  of  the  musical  clubs  receive  faculty 
advice  and  assistance  at  Swarthmore.  The  faculty 
are  paid  for  the  heavier  pieces  of  work. 

Both  professional  and  amateur  coaching  are  em- 
ployed at  Barnard,  said  Ruth  Salom  of  Barnard. 
The  coaching  for  dramatics  is  done  by  professionals ; 
the  coaching  for  the  Greek  Games,  the  unique  con- 
test between  the  freshman  and  sophomore  classes, 
is  done  by  student  committees.  Experience  at  Bar- 
nard seemed  to  show  that  when  a  given  activity  de- 
mands for  its  success  spontaneity,  enthusiasm,  and 
co-operation  among  the  students,  it  is  wiser  not  to 


210     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

use  the  services  of  a  professional  coach ;  but  when 
mature  skill,  judgment,  and  unlimited  time  are 
needed  —  as  in  an  ambitious  play  —  a  professional 
coach  is  a  necessity.  Miss  Salom  paid  a  warm  trib- 
ute to  the  production  of  the  * '  Pageant  of  Athena ' ' 
at  Vassar. 

In  the  discussion  which  followed  Miss  Salom 's 
speech,  a  student  from  Vassar  emphasized  the  fact 
that  the  pageant  had  been  given  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Miss  Hazel  MacKaye,  a  professional,  and 
expressed  the  opinion  that  the  results  could  not 
have  been  attained  without  her  assistance.  Another 
speaker  from  Vassar  suggested  the  danger  of  getting 
into  ruts  without  fresh  stimulus  from  outside,  and 
spoke  of  the  influx  of  new  ideas  which  a  good  coach 
can  bring.  She  also  pointed  out  that  the  earlier 
speakers  had  assumed  that  the  coach  was  necessa- 
rily out  of  sympathy  with  the  educational  ideals  of 
the  college,  whereas  such  need  not  be  the  case.  A 
good  coach  will  take  exactly  the  same  attitude  toward 
the  students  that  a  good  teacher  takes :  he  will  offer 
his  experience,  but  he  will  see  that  the  students 
work  out  essential  problems  for  themselves.  Another 
speaker  mentioned  the  difference  between  the  prob- 
lem of  coaching  in  dramatics  and  that  of  coaching 
in  other  activities,  such  as  debating  and  writing  for 
publications.  In  these  latter  activities  stimulus  can 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  211 

come  from  the  class-room,  whereas  in  acting  no  such 
stimulus  exists  within  the  college,  there  being  few 
if  any  college  courses  in  acting.  Coaching  in  dra- 
matics might  therefore  be  desirable  when  coaching 
in  activities  more  nearly  parallel  to  the  curricular 
work  might  prove  a  restriction  to  initiative. 

In  closing  the  argument  B.  B.  Atterbury  of 
Princeton  emphasized  the  fact  that  the  professional 
coach  saved  time  for  the  students  in  matters  of  rou- 
tine, but  as  still  more  important,  he  helped  to  produce 
results  which  could  be  achieved  in  no  other  way. 
The  objectionable  features  of  professional  coaching, 
he  thought,  could  be  eliminated.  Faculty  assistance 
is  also  of  the  greatest  value ;  at  Princeton  faculty 
coaching  of  the  crew  and  of  the  debaters  has  proved 
extremely  successful.  The  student's  initiative  need 
not  be  destroyed,  said  Mr.  Atterbury  in  conclusion, 
either  through  professional  coaching  or  faculty  as- 
sistance. 

The  discussion  on  the  basis  of  membership  for 
undergraduate  organizations  centred  largely  upon 
the  idea  that  competition  is  not  only  the  fairest  but 
the  most  effective  basis  for  membership  in  organiza- 
tions and  for  participation  in  student  activities.  This 
point  of  view  was  specially  stressed  in  the  opening 
speech  of  the  discussion  by  Oliver  A.  Weppner  of 
Colgate,  whose  subject  was  ''Incentive  plus  Effi- 


212     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

ciency."  Only  a  basis  of  excellence  founded  upon 
competition  can  insure  the  purposeful  interest  neces- 
sary to  the  best  success  of  college  organizations,  he 
contended.  Such  a  basis  quickens  energy  and  pro- 
duces incentive;  it  also,  brings  out  the  highest  type 
of  efficiency.  Mr.  Weppner  illustrated  his  argu- 
ment by  the  history  of  debating  clubs,  musical  socie- 
ties, and  other  organizations  at  Colgate,  which  had 
emerged  to  success  by  an  adoption  of  the  competi- 
tive basis. 

At  Harvard  the  principle  of  competition  is  used 
in  the  selection  of  undergraduates  for  the  manager- 
ships of  the  many  and  complex  activities,  said  Wells 
Blanch ard  of  Harvard,  who  oudined  the  Harvard 
system.  Each  competitor  does  practical  work  in  the 
particular  field  which  he  has  chosen,  acting  as  as- 
sistant to  the  official  manager  up  to  the  time  when 
the  new  manager  is  chosen.  Choice  of  managers 
rests  upon  proved  efficiency,  but  character  and  good 
judgment  are  also  taken  into  consideration. 

In  the  six  societies  at  Wellesley,  which  corre- 
spond somewhat  to  the  fraternities  in  the  men's 
colleges,  and  are  primarily  centres  of  social  life,  the 
basis  of  membership  is  in  substance  that  of  compe- 
tition, for  members  are  chosen  because  of  excellence 
in  scholarship,  or  because  of  the  performance  of  a 
certain  amount  of  public  service.  Scholarship  and 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE    213 

public  spirit  are  thus  promoted  in  the  college.  The 
Wellesley  system  was  not  advocated  as  perfect  by 
Edith  Jones,  who  described  it;  but  the  present  basis 
is  believed  to  mean  an  advance  toward  equality  of 
opportunity  for  all.  The  basis  of  membership  for 
organizations  other  than  the  societies  at  Welles- 
ley  varies  according  to  the  character  of  the  society. 
Those  clubs  whose  activities  demand  a  special  pro- 
ficiency are  on  a  partially  competitive  basis,  while 
such  organizations  as  the  Students  Association,  the 
Christian  Association,  and  the  Athletic  Associa- 
tion, in  which  interest  is  general,  naturally  include 
almost  the  whole  student  body. 

At  Amherst,  said  Charles  B.  Ames  of  Amherst,  no 
student  can  belong  to  an  organization  —  the  Chris- 
tian Association,  and  one  or  two  minor  clubs  ex- 
cepted—  until  he  has  paid  his  athletic  tax,  a  tax 
which  averages  from  five  to  sixteen  dollars  and  is 
levied  according  to  a  general  approximation  of  the 
income  of  the  student.  The  payment  of  this  tax 
entitles  the  student  first  of  all  to  membership  in 
the  Students  Association.  The  sum  collected  is  di- 
vided among  all  the  smaller  organizations ;  in  this 
way  each  student  contributes  to  the  support  of  all. 
Within  the  large  associations  competition  exists  for 
the  various  activities.  In  the  fraternities  scholarship 
is  a  factor  in  membership ;  no  man  can  be  initiated 


214     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

who  is  not  passing  four  out  of  five  subjects.  More- 
over, freshmen  are  ineligible  for  participation  in  any 
college  activities  until  the  second  semester,  and  then 
they  can  take  part  only  if  they  are  free  of  entrance 
conditions  and  have  at  least  an  average  of  seventy, 
while  sophomores  and  upper  class-men  are  ineligi- 
ble if  they  have  more  than  one  condition.  The  gen- 
eral system  seems  broadly  representative. 

Opinion  as  to  the  desirability  of  academic  credit 
for  non-academic  work  was  sharply  divided.  Nor- 
man Salit  of  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York 
argued  that  credit  should  be  given.  Academic  and 
non-academic  work  were  often  much  alike  in  pur- 
pose, as  had  been  frequently  pointed  out  in  the  con- 
ference, he  said.  Not  only  is  credit  due  for  work  that 
is  really  educative,  but  non-academic  work  is  so  es- 
sential for  the  undergraduate  that  it  should  become 
actually  compulsory.  Non-academic  work  makes  for 
symmetry  of  development.  Many  students  now  fail 
to  take  a  part  in  this  work,  and  so  lose  its  benefits; 
their  education  is  accordingly  incomplete.  To  a  basis 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty- credits  of  academic  work 
for  graduation,  an  additional  ten  credits  might  be 
added,  these  to  be  worked  ofFinnon-curricular  activ- 
ities. The  details  of  administration  could,  Mr.  Salit 
thought,  be  easily  arranged.  Campus  and  curricu- 
lum should  be  brought  together,  he  argued. 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  215 

Margaret  Writer  of  Wells  opposed  Mr.  Salit's 
argument,  saying  she  believed  that  non-academic 
activities  exist  primarily  for  the  student's  relaxation 
and  recreation,  however  important  their  effects  may 
be.  To  give  credit  for  such  activities  would  be  not 
only  to  rob  them  of  their  essential  character,  but  of 
their  chief  value.  The  work  involved  need  not  be  paid 
for  by  any  system  of  rewards.  The  college,  she  main- 
tained, exists  primarily  for  intellectual  training.  No 
other  institution  gives  such  training;  and  to  intro- 
duce into  the  curriculum  elements  of  work  which 
are  not  strictly  intellectual  would  be  to  lower  Ameri- 
can standards  of  sholarship, — a  disastrous  step  for 
the  nation,  since  Americans  are  even  now  chiefly 
known  as  business  men  and  money-makers. 

In  counter  argument  Ruth  Salom  of  Barnard  said 
that  the  correlation  of  certain  forms  of  non-academic 
activity  with  the  curriculum  would  vitalize  schol- 
arship. Education  is  tending  more  and  more  to 
combine  practical  work  with  the  academic  studies, 
she  declared.  If  the  outside  activities  of  the  student, 
often  in  direct  line  with  her  academic  work,  could 
be  brought  into  relation  with  the  academic  depart- 
ments, the  result  would  be  of  the  utmost  value  both 
to  the  student  and  to  the  departments ;  extra-curric- 
ulum activities  often  test  the  student's  grasp  and 
understanding  of  her  academic  work.  Holding  this 


216     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

opinion,  the  Student  Council  at  Barnard  has  drawn 
up  a  plan  for  correlation, —  the  plan  mentioned  by 
Miss  Lorenz  in  her  account  of  student  government 
at  Barnard.  Such  forms  of  outside  activity  as  ser- 
vice and  investigation  in  settlements,  the  Bureau  of 
Municipal  Research,  and  the  Bureau  of  Intercol- 
legiate Occupations,  are  directly  in  line  with  the 
work  in  certain  courses  in  Economics ;  and  it  is  in 
connection  with  the  Department  of  Economics  that 
the  new  plan  will  be  informally  tried  at  Barnard  this 
year.  A  committee  made  up  of  members  of  the  Eco- 
nomics Department  and  a  representative  of  settle- 
ment work  in  the  college  will  decide  in  correlation 
with  what  course  or  courses  the  plan  is  to  be  used. 
They  will  select  the  activities  for  which  credit  should 
be  given ;  they  will  accept  or  reject  any  candidate  in 
accordance  with  their  judgment,  and  give  or  with- 
hold credit  for  any  piece  of  work  submitted.  In  order 
to  insure  efficiency  of  supervision  the  committee  will 
appoint  a  faculty  supervisor  for  each  student's  work. 
Students  must  present  reports,  themes,  and  a  sched- 
ule of  time  spent,  signed  by  the  supervisor.  Classes 
of  those  engaged  in  this  extra  work  will  be  held 
under  the  guidance  of  the  teachers  of  the  courses 
involved.  The  plan  will  be  limited  to  use  in  the 
advanced  courses  in  economics  for  the  time  being, 
but  it  has  met  with  general  approval,  and  the  coun- 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  217 

cil  hopes  to  formulate  still  further  plans  by  which 
pageantry,  dramatics,  and  literary  work  in  the  Press 
Club  and  on  the  college  magazines  will  be  affiliated 
with  the  curriculum  in  the  same  way. 

Herbert  A.  Wichelns  of  Cornell,  who  followed 
Miss  Salom  with  a  speech  on  * '  The  Real  Purpose 
of  the  College, ' '  agreed  that  non-curricular  activities 
served  the  same  functions  and  worked  along  the 
same  lines  as  the  curriculum,  but  he  said  he  beheved 
the  main  sense  of  the  conference  had  been  that  these 
activities  should  not  be  the  major  interest  of  the  stu- 
dent. That  they  actually  are  the  major  interest  of  the 
student  he  thought  to  be  a  matter  of  common  know- 
ledge, but  it  was  his  opinion  that  they  are  really  of 
comparatively  little  significance.  To  put  upon  them 
the  premium  of  credit  would  be  to  distort  w^hatever 
value  they  have  out  of  all  proportion,  and  to  alter 
the  purpose  of  the  college,  which  is  strict  intellect- 
ual training. 

J.  Brackett  Lewis  of  Oberlin,  closing  the  argu- 
ment, took  issue  both  with  Mr.  Wichelns  and  with 
Miss  Writer,  and  Hke  Mr.  Salit  and  Miss  Salom 
upheld  a  closer  correlation  of  curricular  and  non- 
curricular  work.  He  pointed  out  that  in  the  plans 
advocated  no  substitution  was  made  of  non-cur- 
ricular for  curricular  work.  He  said  that  he  him- 
self would  not  cheapen  the  Bachelor's  degree,  but 


218     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

because  of  the  value  of  non-curricular  work,  he  be- 
lieved that  such  work  should  be  definitely  required 
of  every  student,  over  and  above  the  highest  schol- 
arly requirements.  The  fault  of  the  old  system  is  that 
too  much  is  done  by  a  few  students,  and  their  curric- 
ulum work  suffers  in  consequence ;  whereas  a  large 
number  of  students  should  be  forced  out  into  an  ac- 
tive college  life,  and  the  work  so  distributed  as  not 
to  fall  too  heavily  upon  any  single  individual.  The 
new  plan  would  of  course  entail  a  standardization  of 
the  value  of  extra-curriculum  activities,  but  many 
colleges  now  have  a  point  system  for  the  limitation 
of  activity,  and  it  should  not  be  impossible  with  the 
point  system  as  a  basis  to  formulate  a  scheme  of 
standardization.  The  faults  with  the  proposal  seem 
to  be  two,  said  Mr.  Lewis.  The  equipment  in  most 
colleges  is  not  sufficient  to  allow  the  participation  of 
the  whole  student  body  in  non-academic  activities ; 
the  equipment  would  have  to  be  enlarged.  Then  the 
possibility  exists  that  a  system  of  requirement  would 
make  these  activities  unpopular.  But  the  benefits 
brought  out  by  the  earlier  speakers  are  numerous, 
and  seem  to  outweigh  the  objections.  We  are  in  col- 
lege for  intellectual  training.  Why  not  use  that  train- 
ing while  we  are  acquiring  it?  Non-curricular  work 
offers  the meansof  application. Furthermore,  through 
the  general  participation  in  student  activities  which 


INTERCOLLEGIATE  CONFERENCE  219 

would  result  from  a  system  of  credit,  class  barriers 
would  be  broken  down  to  a  large  extent.  Each  stu- 
dent would  be  thrown  into  contact  with  others 
whom  he  must  judge  by  their  ability  or  talent.  The 
outside  activities  themselves  would  be  strengthened 
by  the  increased  competition  for  responsible  posts. 
The  scheme  would  build  up  college  life  and  would 
build  up  the  lives  of  the  students. 

The  conference  attempted  to  formulate  no  conclu- 
sions. Throughout,  the  opinions  expressed  were  di- 
verse, even  mutually  contradictory,  as  was  natural, 
and  experience  itself  seemed  to  vary  widely  in  the 
different  colleges.  The  values  of  the  discussions  were 
mainly  those  of  comparison  and  of  many-sided  state- 
ment. Yet  certain  points  of  view  seemed  central. 
Definitions  of  the  purpose  of  the  college  appeared 
as  constant  points  of  departure  or  of  reference.  An 
absorption  in  the  experimental  and  practical  affairs 
of  non-curricular  work  was  frankly  avowed,  but 
more  than  often  the  educational  worth  of  these  affairs 
was  stressed.  Social  aims  were  frequently  defined; 
broad  connections  were  steadily  regarded.  Viewed 
as  part  of  a  celebration  whose  chief  interest  was 
educational,  the  special  contribution  of  the  confer- 
ence might  be  said  to  consist  in  the  comprehen- 
sive picture  which  it  gave  of  a  widely  various,  free, 


220    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

and  purposeful  undergraduate  activity,  developing 
in  vital  relationship  to  the  larger  activity  of  the 
college. 


The  Pageant  of  Athena 

Composed  and  presented  by  the  Students  of  Vassar  College 
under  the  direction  of  Aliss  Hazel  MacKaye 


The  Setting 

The  Pageant  of  Athena  takes  place  in  the  new  out-of- 
door  theatre  built  on  the  slope  south  of  the  Sanders 
Laboratory.  The  broad  green  turf-stage  lies  in  an  an- 
gle at  the  foot  of  the  slope,  encircled  by  the  trees  of 
the  Pine  Walk  and  showing  glimpses  of  the  lower  lake 
and  of  the  hill  which  rises  to  Sunset  in  the  farther  dis- 
tance. At  the  back  of  the  stage  where  the  pines  form 
a  close  screen  rises  a  wide  low  dais,  with  three  shallow 
steps  along  its  sides;  to  the  left  is  a  stone-rimmed  pool, 
whose  water  sometimes  is  still  and  sometimes  bubbles 
and  plays.  A  thick  double  border  of  low-clipped  ever- 
greens runs  across  the  front,  hiding  the  orchestra  pit, 
and  broad  natural  paths  lead  directly  upon  the  stage. 
The  color  background  for  the  Pageant  is  the  prevailing 
color  of  mid-October.  The  ripe  gold  of  the  stubble  on 
the  Sunset  slope  is  reflected  in  the  still  clear  waters  of 
the  lake,  and  over  the  dark  green  of  the  pines  lift  the 
brilliant  treetops  along  the  hill  above  the  glen,  the  yel- 
low elms  arching  high  like  a  crest.  The  Pageant  begins 
in  the  bright  sunlight  of  early  afternoon  and  closes  with 
the  first  dusk. 


The  Pageant  of  Athena 

Of  Pallas  Atliena,  glorious  Goddess,  I  begin  to  sing,  of  the  Gray- 
eyed,  the  wise;  her  of  the  relentless  heart,  the  maiden  revered,  the 
succor  of  cities,  the  valiant,  true  child  of  her  father.  Homeric  Hymn. 

VEILED  priestesses  approach  the  inner  stage, 
moving  in  rhythm  to  the  slow  measure  of  the 
Overture  to  '^Euryanthe."  They  kneel  and  invoke 
the  goddess  Athena.  In  a  cloud  of  smoke  and  a  burst 
of  altar  flame,  majestic  in  helmet  and  spear,  Athena 
appears  before  her  handmaidens,  passes  between  the 
kneeling  groups,  and  bids  them  rise,  that  they  may 
behold  her  Web  of  Knowledge,  interwoven  through 
the  ages  with  the  lives  of  learned  women,  rich  with 
the  colors  of  their  thought.  The  priestesses  unveil 
and  Athena  speaks : 

^^ Bright  in  the  skein  of  time  gleam  many  strands^ 
Endlessly  varied.  I  have  chosen  those 
Ofjlame.,  ofjire^  of  rich^  luxuriant  gold., 
And  those  whose  beauty  lies  in  their  clear  strength. 
My  -will  it  is  to  weave  them.,  strand  on  strand.. 
Tracing  the  course  of  learning  through  the  years 
In  one  close-wrought  design.  And  those  who  come 
Shall  pause  before  this  fabric,  ages  old.. 
Shaped  by  past  lives  in  symmetry  and  truth.. 
And  glorying  in  design  so  well  begun.. 
Themselves  shall  add  thereto.  And  this  my  web 
Shall  weaving  be  forever.,  never  doneP 


224    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

The  goddess  vanishes,  and  the  priestesses  move 
away  slowly  as  the  beginning  of  the  Web  becomes 
visible. 

Sappho 

Men  I  think  will  remember  me  even  hereafter.  Sappho. 

SAPPHO,  Hero,  Andromeda,  Atthis,  and  other 
maidens  enter  a  glade  on  the  Island  of  Lesbos, 
singing.  They  dance  as  they  come,  and  their  song 
runs  sweetly,  — ' '  Do  thou,  O  Dica,  set  garlands  in 
thy  lovely  hair,  twining  shoots  of  dill  together  with 
soft  hands,  for  those  who  have  fair  flowers  may  best 
stand  first  even  in  the  favor  of  goddesses,  who  turn 
their  faces  away  from  those  who  lack  garlands. ' '  All 
are  in  bright  fresh  colors,  coral,  green,  yellow,  or 
blue,  except  Sappho,  who  wears  white.  Some  carry 
vines,  Hero  bears  a  loom,  Atthis  a  lyre.  They  scat- 
ter, and  at  the  bidding  of  Sappho,  those  who  bear 
leaves  and  flowers  seat  themselves  near  the  dais  and 
begin  to  weave  and  bind  their  garlands.  Mnasidica, 
Gyrinno,  and  Erinna,  "of  sweet  speech  and  lovely 
laughter, "  go  to  the  pool,  where  they  play  at  knuckle- 
bones and  sport  with  their  own  reflections,  while  Hero 
plies  her  loom,  and  Sappho  sits  on  a  marble  bench 
upon  the  dais  and  talks  to  those  who  are  weaving  gar- 
lands, with  Atthis  near  her.  But  soon  Hero  casts  her 
loom  aside,  runs  to  Sappho,  kneels,  and  cries, '  ^  Sweet 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  225 

Sappho,  I  cannot  weave  my  web,  broken  as  I  am  at 
Aphrodite's  will ! ' '  Sappho  raises  Hero,  and  together 
they  walk  back  to  gaze  across  the  cool  waters  of  the 
lake,  Sappho  telling  the  maiden  that  she  is  but  weary 
weaving  her  web  of  love.  Yet  the  eyes  of  Hero  waken 
Sappho's  own  longings,  and  presently  she  comes  for- 
ward alone,  chanting.  At  first  her  words  can  barely 
be  heard ;  then  she  speaks  out  in  full  tones :  * '  Now 
Eros  shakes  my  soul, — a  wind  upon  the  mountain 
falling  upon  oaks,  a  green  wave  leaping  into  trem- 
bling spray  over  gray  rocks."  She  stands  for  a  mo- 
ment, rapt.  "  I  do  not  think  to  touch  the  sky  with 
my  two  hands.  .  .  .  On  the  hills  the  shepherds  tram- 
ple the  hyacinths  under  foot,  and  the  flower  dark- 
ens on  the  ground."  As  she  pauses  again,  Dica  and 
Erinna  suddenly  run  to  her,  and  Sappho  turns, 
catching  Dica  fairly  and  laughing.  She  bids  the 
two  bring  the  others,  that  Atthis  may  now  sing  the 
joy  of  the  day,  weaving  her  golden  song  as  the  sun- 
light weaves  among  the  branches.  Dica  and  Erinna 
beckon  the  maidens,  who  gather  upon  the  dais,  and 
Andromeda  flings  a  garland  around  Sappho.  At  a 
sign  from  Sappho,  Atthis  moves  away  and  strikes 
her  lyre,  singing  softly  and  clearly:  *'The  sweet- 
apple  blushes  on  the  end  of  the  bough,  the  very  end 
of  the  bough,  which  the  gatherers  overlooked — 
nay,  overlooked  not,  but  could  not  reach.  .  .  .  The 


226     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

sweet-apple  blushes  on  the  end  of  the  bough . ' '  Atthis 
turns  shyly  to  Sappho  as  she  finishes  her  song,  and 
Sappho,  smiling,  calls  her  words  far  sweeter  of  tone 
than  harp,  more  golden  than  gold.  "Your  wreaths 
for  Atthis, ' '  she  cries,  and  the  maidens  crown  Atthis 
with  their  jasmine,  ivy,  and  laurel,  speaking  their 
praise  together.  They  run  back  with  her  to  the  dais 
as  dancers  enter,  and  Sappho  bids  the  dancers  dance 
for  Atthis:  ''Dance!  Weave  the  sunlight  and  the 
fragrant  leaves  with  your  dancing — your  wreath  for 
Atthis. ' '  The  music  of  ballets  from  ' '  Orphee ' '  and 
''Alceste  "  is  heard,  and  the  band  of  dancers,  with 
loose-bound  hair,  clad  in  chitons  whose  color  is  pale 
like  sea-sand,  join  in  happy  changeful  figures.  Some 
play  as  with  tossing  balls  while  they  dance ;  some 
chase  each  other  as  in  a  game  across  the  lawns; 
others  rest  at  times  by  the  pool.  At  the  last  they  all 
run  to  encircle  Atthis  and  gayly  lead  her  off  through 
the  trees,  dancing  as  they  go,  the  maidens  with  them, 
except  Dica  and  Erinna,  who  follow  slowly  with 
Sappho. 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  227 

Hortensia 

The  women  forced  a  way  to  the  judgment  seat  of  the  Triumvirs  in 
the  Fonim,  through  the  ranks  of  the  people  and  the  body  guards, 
who  stood  aside  to  let  them  pass.  Appian's  Roman  History. 
There  Hortensia,  when  ...  no  man  dared  undertake  their  defense, 
pleaded  the  cause  of  the  women,  with  firmness  and  success.  Vale- 
rius Maximus. 

TWO  guards  pace  up  and  down,  and  a  crowd 
gathers  before  the  Forum.  The  senators  Pollio 
and  Sallustius  in  crimson -bordered  white  togas 
enter,  discussing  the  fruitless  demand  of  Hortensia 
and  other  women  to  Fulvia,  wife  of  Antonius,  that 
they  be  relieved  of  the  war-tax  levied  upon  the 
rich  daughters,  wives,  and  sisters  of  the  proscribed. 
Citizens  come  in,  and  also  other  senators  accom- 
panied by  cHents  and  slaves.  A  blind  beggar  limps 
from  group  to  group ;  a  wine-merchant  with  his 
jar  vends  his  wares ;  boys  in  blue,  brown,  and  pur- 
ple tunics  run  across  the  rostrum,  annoying  the 
guards,  and  catching  coins  flung  to  them  by  a  sen- 
ator. In  the  scramble  one  boy  slips  into  the  pool  and 
runs  oflf  dripping,  jeered  at  by  his  companions  and 
the  nearby  spectators.  Trebatius  joins  Pollio  and 
Sallustius,  the  noise  of  the  crowd  swells,  the  end 
of  the  discussion  is  lost.  Presently  lictors  enter,  two 
by  two.  The  crowd  breaks  for  the  triumvirs,  who 
mount  the  rostrum,  surges  together  again,  and  is 


228     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

silent,  a  sombre  throng.  The  triumvirs  consult  for  a 
moment ;  then  Antonius  begins  to  speak,  exhorting 
the  citizens  of  Rome  to  hear  judgment  on  the  mili- 
tary tax.  But  as  he  speaks  Hortensia  and  a  group 
of  women  are  seen  to  the  left,  quickly  making  their 
way  toward  the  Forum;  they  press  through  the 
crowd,  and  at  the  rostrum  Hortensia  demands  im- 
periously that  the  cause  of  the  women,  the  cause  of 
justice,  be  heard.  Octavianus  asks:  "Nay — and 
shall  we  let  a  woman  plead  ?  ' '  Hortensia  challenges : 
* '  Does  justice  scorn  a  woman  ? ' '  She  appeals  boldly 
to  the  crowd:  "What  will  ye,  citizens  of  Rome, 
shall  justice  speak?"  The  crowd  gives  a  strong 
assent :  "Ay,  Lepidus,  let  Hortensia  be  heard.  Ay, 
ay, — Hortensia  shall  be  heard.  Give  audience,  An- 
tonius ! ' '  Antonius  reluctantly  grants  the  right  of 
speech,  and  Hortensia  mounts  the  rostrum.  A  white- 
robed  strong  figure,  turning  now  to  the  triumvirs, 
now  to  the  crowd,  she  speaks  with  pride  and  deter- 
mination, contending  that  the  women  have  had  no 
share  in  the  making  of  the  civil  war,  and  that  al- 
ready they  have  been  deprived  of  their  husbands, 
brothers,  fathers,  sons,  by  proscription.  "  If  we  have 
done  you  wrong,  as  you  say  they  have,  proscribe  us 
too,  as  you  do  them.  But  if  't  is  true  that  never  have 
we  women  cast  a  vote  to  exile  one  of  you,  nor  yet 
torn  down  a  dwelling-house,  nor  lost  an  army,  nor 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  229 

kept  you  from  enjoying  place  and  honor,  pray  why 
should  we,  who  have  not  done  the  wrong,  share  with 
the  culprits  in  the  penalty?  And  why  should  we, 
debarred  from  holding  office,  from  leading  armies, 
and  from  politics, — the  strife  that  brings  you  to  this 
wretched  plight, — pay  taxes  though  we  share  not 
in  the  state?  Because  't  is  a  time  of  war,  you  say  I 
When  is  it  not?"  The  crowd  gives  voice  to  vehe- 
ment approval  as  she  closes  passionately:  *^Thus, 
then,  we  answer  your  unjust  decree:  we  never  will 
obey, — nay,  rather  will  we  die !  "  At  a  motion  from 
the  triumvirs  two  lictors  drag  Hortensia  down  from 
the  rostrum  and  out  into  the  centre  of  the  stage, 
while  others  try  to  check  the  movement  of  the  crowd. 
But  the  crowd  will  not  be  withstood;  some  push 
forward  toward  Hortensia,  some  move  threateningly 
toward  the  rostrum,  and  their  clamor  takes  on  a 
sterner  note.  The  triumvirs  deliberate,  visibly  at  a 
loss,  and  finally  An tonius  speaks:  *' Peace!  Peace! 
We,  Marcus  Antonius,  Gains  Octavianus,  and  Mar- 
cus Aemilius  Lepidus,  the  triumvirs,  are  moved  by 
this  woman,  and  will  deliberate  upon  her  bold  plea. 
Therefore,  to-morrow  morning,  here,  we  will  give 
justice."  The  crowd  cheers,  taking  this  for  a  favor- 
able sign,  and  Hortensia  goes  off  in  triumph  with 
the  band  of  women.  Many  follow  her,  and  shouts  of 
acclaim  are  heard  again.  The  others  disperse,  the 


230     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

triumvirs  with  their  attendants  leaving  last,  in  dis- 
cussion. 

The  Abbess  Hilda  of  Whitby 

This  handmaid  of  Christ,  the  Abbess  Hilda,  whom  all  that  knew 
her  called  Mother,  for  her  singular  piety  and  grace,  was  not  only 
an  example  of  good  life  to  those  that  lived  in  her  monasterj'^,  but 
afforded  occasions  of  amendment  and  salvation  to  many  who  lived 
at  a  distance,  to  whom  the  blessed  fame  was  brought  of  her  industry 
and  virtue.  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History  of  England. 

THE  scene  takes  place  in  the  cloister  court  of  the 
double  monastery  at  Whitby,  where  Caedmon, 
the  gleeman  who  has  become  a  monk,  awaits  Hilda. 
A  porter  gives  an  order  to  servants,  who  bring  in 
stools,  cushions,  and  an  embroidery  frame  showing 
stitchery  of  gold  on  black,  and  Hilda  enters  with  the 
Abbot  of  Whitby  and  his  two  attendants.  They  are 
followed  by  a  procession  of  black-garbed  nuns,  two 
and  two,  who  gather  upon  the  dais  to  embroider  the 
altar  cloth.  Hilda  wears  a  neutral-toned  abbess's 
robe  and  a  white  wimple;  her  bearing  is  quiet  and 
serene,  her  movements  have  a  simple  dignity.  She 
turns  to  the  Abbot  and  invites  him  to  stay,  that  he 
may  hear  the  bard  Caedmon  sing,  but  the  Abbot  may 
not  stay.  He  has  fulfilled  his  mission  of  consulting 
Hilda  as  to  the  fiefing  of  the  monastery  lands ;  he  now 
speaks  with  her  briefly  of  the  eager  Brother  Wulf- 
here,  who  longs  to  spread  God's  word  throughout 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  231 

the  world ;  then  bids  her  farewell.  Hilda  gives  her 
benediction,  and  he  and  his  servants  depart.  Hilda 
now  takes  a  scroll  and  reads  in  Latin  from  Genesis, 
and  as  she  reads  a  low,  flat-bottomed  boat  carrying 
the  three  brown-clad  monkish  figures  is  seen  slowly 
putting  out  across  the  lake,  the  gold  cross  in  the  stern 
mirrored  in  the  quiet  waters.  The  nuns  have  paused 
in  their  work;  there  is  a  moment  of  stillness.  Hilda 
then  tells  Caedmon  that  he  must  sing,  that  the  sis- 
ters may  learn  from  hearing  him:  "Sing  as  thou 
didst  on  that  day  when  midst  the  kine  visions  and 
sweet  sounds  awoke  thy  sleeping  powers."  And 
Caedmon  sings: 

"iVow  must  we  praise  the  Guardian  of  Heaven : 
The  power ^  the  plan^  the  work  fully  wrought 
Of  the  Shaper^  the  Father  of  Glory.  Each  wonder 
Emerged  and  waxed  strong  ''neath  His  hand.,  the  Eternal. 
He  earliest  shaped  for  the  service  of  mortals 
The  heavens  as  roof  He.,  the  Holy  Creator. 
Then  the  Lord  of  Mankind.,  the  Maker  eternal., 
The  Almighty  God.,  established  and  dowered 
With  loveliness..  Earth.,  for  the  children  of  men.'*'* 

As  Hilda  speaks  of  the  wondrous  gift  of  Gaedmon, 
a  porter  comes  to  announce  that  Oswy,  King  of 
Northumbria,  seeks  an  audience  with  her,  and 
Oswy's  thanes  appear  on  the  crest  of  the  hill  far  to 
the  left,  their  spears  and  helmets  and  sober  colors 


232     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

gleaming  in  the  sun.  At  a  sign  from  Hilda  a  mes- 
senger goes  to  give  entrance  to  Oswy,  the  nuns  drop 
their  veils  and  stand  aside,  and  Caedmon  withdraws. 
The  thanes  march  quickly  down  into  the  cloister 
court,  Oswy  and  his  little  daughter  Elfleda  leading. 
They  kneel  before  the  Abbess,  who  blesses  them,  and 
as  they  rise  Oswy  speaks  to  her  of  the  wise  counsel 
which  she  had  once  given  him,  then  of  the  lands 
which  he  and  his  thanes  have  won  in  holy  conquest 
and  which  he  now  bestows  upon  her  for  her  holy 
minster.  Last  of  all  he  speaks  of  his  daughter  Elfleda, 
whom  he  gives  into  Hilda's  keeping,  that  she  may 
grow  like  Hilda  in  holiness,  steadfastness,  and  virtue ; 
he  places  the  child's  hand  in  Hilda's.  The  Abbess 
smiles  at  the  Httle  Elfleda,  thanking  Oswy  for  his 
trust,  and  promising  him  that  the  child  shall  learn 
to  love  wisdom  and  to  glorify  God,  as  becomes  his 
servant.  Again  she  blesses  Oswy  and  his  thanes  as 
they  depart,  solemnly  bidding  them  hew  out  of  the 
wilderness  with  their  swords  a  pathway  for  the  com- 
ing of  the  Son  of  God.  The  monastery  bell  tolls,  the 
nuns  cross  themselves,  and  singing  the  Gregorian 
chant  Magnificat  they  leave,  a  black-robed  proces- 
sion, Hilda  and  the  child  walking  before  them. 


THE   PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  233 

Marie  de  France 

Those  to  whom  God  has  given  a  gift  of  comely  speech,  should  not 
hide  their  light  beneath  a  bushel,  but  should  willingly  show  it  abroad. 
If  a  great  truth  is  proclaimed  in  the  ears  of  men,  it  brings  forth  fruit 
a  hundred  fold ;  but  when  the  sweetness  of  the  telling  is  praised  of 
many,  flowers  mingle  with  the  fruit  upon  the  branch.  Prologue  to 
THE  Lays  of  Marie  de  France. 

TWO  sergeants-at-arms  in  chain  mail  guard  the 
entrance  at  the  right.  As  music  begins — 2i gav- 
otte—  groups  of  lords  and  ladies  of  the  court  of  King 
Henry  and  Queen  Eleanor  enter,  in  rich  satins  and 
velvets,  plum-colored,  deep  turquoise,  green,  gold, 
and  lavender,  the  ladies  wearing  the  flowing  head- 
dress of  the  period,  the  lords  in  full-skirted  coats,  gor- 
geously embroidered.  The  king  and  queen,  crowned 
and  jeweled,  robed  in  white  satin  with  capes  of  pale 
blue  and  rose,  make  a  royal  entrance,  walking  under 
a  fringed  canopy  borne  by  pages.  They  mount  the 
dais  and  turn  to  the  court,  which  bows  low.  At  the 
king's  bidding  again  there  is  music,  and  all  the  court 
takes  part  in  a  stately  pavane.  When  the  dance  is 
over,  the  court  breaks  into  groups,  and  the  murmur 
of  conversation  is  heard.  Then  with  a  sign  at  which 
all  turn,  the  king  speaks:  ''Pleasure  has  reigned 
within  our  court  this  day.  The  feast  has  passed  in 
merriment;  the  dance  has  brought  delight  to  all. 
But  to  crown  the  day's  festivities,  we  have  a  keener 


234    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

joy  than  these,  one  not  yet  known  within  the  court. 
From  over  sea,  Marie  de  France  has  come.  Even 
now  she  waits  to  do  us  pleasure.  Summon  her,  page ; 
let  music  bring  her  thither. ' '  Strings  are  heard  play- 
ing a  gigue,  and  Marie  enters,  shyly  but  eagerly,  in 
white  satin  and  silver,  with  pearls  in  her  hair,  two 
pages  carrying  her  train.  She  glances  at  the  court, 
then  quickly  approaches  the  dais  and  curtseys  low, 
rising  only  when  the  king  speaks  to  welcome  her. 
There  is  a  courtly  exchange  of  words,  in  which  the 
king  declares  it  passing  strange  for  a  woman  to  be 
a  scribe  and  a  poet,  and  Marie  answers  him,  saying, 
"Indeed,  if  any  one  would  keep  himself  from  sin, 
he  should  study  and  learn  and  undertake  a  weari- 
some task :  in  this  way  he  may  spare  himself  great 
sorrow.  Thus  I  bethought  me  of  the  lays  that  I  had 
heard  sung  in  remembrance  of  adventure,  and  since 
I  would  not  leave  them  forgotten  in  the  world,  I 
rhymed  them  into  verse.  And  as  I  set  them  down  on 
parchment,  the  words  inscribed  themselves  upon  my 
heart."  The  king  then  begs  that  she  tell  one  of  her 
lays.  So  Marie  tells  the  ' '  Lay  of  the  Honeysuckle, ' ' 
the  story  of  Tristram  and  of  the  queen,  and  of  their 
faithful  love  that  brought  manifold  woes  upon  them, 
and  at  length  death  itself.  She  tells  how  when  King 
Mark,  bitterly  wroth,  had  banished  Tristram  from 
the  realm,  and  Tristram  had  returned  into  Cornwall 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  235 

distraught  for  love,  he  one  day  cut  a  hazel  branch 
in  the  forest  along  the  road  by  which  he  knew  the 
queen  must  come,  and  stripped  it  four-square,  and 
wrote  his  name  upon  it,  that  the  queen  should  know 
the  mark  for  her  lover's.  This  was  the  import  of  the 
writing  that  he  set  upon  it :  that  he  had  been  there 
long,  waiting  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  her,  or  to  know 
how  he  might  see  her,  for  without  her  he  could  not 
live.  For  the  twain  of  them  were  like  the  hazel  and 
the  honeysuckle  clinging  to  it :  when  they  are  all  in- 
tertwined and  clasped  together,  they  thrive  well,  but 
if  they  be  parted,  the  hazel  dies  at  once,  and  likewise 
the  honeysuckle.  Marie  tells  how  the  queen  came 
riding  in  her  cavalcade,  until  she  saw  the  hazel, 
when  she  bade  her  knights  to  halt,  which  they  did, 
and  calling  her  maiden  Brenguin,  wandered  from 
her  folk,  and  as  she  turned  aside  from  the  wood 
a  little,  she  found  him  whom  she  loved  more  than 
any  living  thing.  Gladness  dwelt  with  them  while  he 
spoke  with  her  at  his  will,  and  for  the  joy  which 
he  had  in  his  lady,  whom  he  saw  by  means  of  the 
writing  on  the  hazel,  Tristram,  who  was  skilled  in 
harping,  made  a  new  lay  for  the  remembrance  of 
her  words.  This  is  called  Gotelefm  English,  and 
Chievrefoil  in  French.  **It  is  the  truth  I  have  told 
you  in  this  lay,"  says  Marie.  The  court  show  their 
great  pleasure  by  hearty  applause,  and  Marie  turns 


236    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

to  the  king  and  queen  and  curtseys  low.  As  they 
rise,  the  sound  of  a  distant  trumpet  is  heard  which 
heralds  the  king's  cousin.  Again  music  is  played, 
and  the  court  goes  forth,  the  queen  with  Marie 
walking  under  the  canopy,  the  ladies  of  the  court 
and  the  king  with  his  courtiers  in  train. 

Isabella  d'Este 

Behold  Ercole's  daughter,  Isabella,  for  whose  birth  Ferrara  shall 
hold  herself  far  more  blessed  than  for  all  other  gifts  which  a  benign 
and  prospering  Fortune  shall  bestow  on  her,  as  the  years  run  their 
swift  course.  Ariosto's  Orlando  Furioso. 

A  BURST  of  gay  music  announces  the  entrance 
of  the  guests  who  have  come  to  the  Court  of 
the  Fountain  in  the  Gonzaga  Villa  at  Mantua  for 
Isabella's  golden  fete,  to  be  held  in  honor  of  her 
name-day.  The  fountain  plays,  the  guests  fling  con- 
fetti, showering  one  another, — a  brilliant  throng,  all 
rich  yellows,  golds,  russets,  and  saffrons.  Isabella 
enters  with  a  following  of  illustrious  artists,  Leo- 
nardo, Ariosto,  Mantegna,  Bellini,  and  others.  Pages 
carry  rich  gifts,  which  Isabella  shows  gayly, — a 
jeweled  casket  of  Florentine  workmanship  fromCas- 
tiglione,  a  painting  by  Mantegna,  a  bas-relief  by 
Leonardo,  and  a  book  of  poetry  by  Ariosto.  She  ral- 
lies Castiglione  on  his  talent  for  courtly  words  and  re- 
proaches Bellini  for  his  failure  to  bring  her  2i  fantasia 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  237 

she  has  ordered,  but  Leonardo  in  turn  reproaches 
her,  speaking  earnestly  of  Bellini  as  the  master.  Leo- 
nardo's own  work  calls  forth  warm  praise.  The 
gifts  shown  and  admired,  Isabella  announces  a 
pantomime,  to  be  given  by  the  Fedeh,  who  serve 
the  house  of  Mantua.  Servants  bring  in  long  gilt 
benches,  which  they  place  at  each  side  of  the  stage 
and  spread  with  blue  velvet  coverings  and  cushions ; 
the  guests  are  seated,  and  the  players  enter .  They  are 
Flaminio,  Flaminio's  father,  Pantalone,  Flaminio's 
servant,  Brighella,  and  Arlecchino,  the  former  ser- 
vant of  Pantalone ;  Flaminia,  Flaminia's  father,  Dr. 
Gratiano,  and  Flaminia's  maid,  Franceschina ;  a 
Spanish  Desperado,  and  Scappino,  his  servant.  The 
company  presents  a  varied  effect  of  black  and  white 
and  scarlet,  except  for  the  Spanish  Desperado,  who 
appears  in  black  slashed  with  green,  with  high 
boots  and  a  feathered  hat ;  and  his  servant,  who  is 
dressed  in  green  and  black.  Flaminio  and  Flaminia 
wear  black  velvet  with  a  touch  of  white ;  Arlecchino 
is  in  a  diamond-patterned  clown's  costume  of  red, 
black,  and  white.  The  players  range  themselves  in 
a  formal  row,  bow,  and  retire.  Two  of  them  re-enter 
immediately,  each  carrying  blue  paper  trees  in  blue 
boxes,  upon  which  are  fastened  red  paper  flowers; 
these  they  place  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  stage. 
A  litde  group  of  minstrels  stands  in  the  background 


238     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

and  accompanies  the  action  which  follows  with  fit- 
ting music.  The  lovers,  Flaminio  and  Flaminia, 
enter,  happy  and  languishing,  but  Flaminio  is  soon 
summoned  away,  and  Flaminio 's  father,  Pantalone, 
speedily  makes  love  to  Flaminia,  while  Arlecchino 
capers  about  making  love  to  Flaminia 's  maid.  Pres- 
ently Pantalone  and  Arlecchino  go  off,  plotting. 
Meanwhile  Flaminia  accepts  a  string  of  pearls  from 
the  Spanish  Desperado,  and  Scappino  and  Frances- 
china  mimic  the  love  scene;  but  the  Spanish  Des- 
perado is  frightened  off  by  Dr.  Gratiano.  Pantalone 
and  Arlecchino  enter  disguised  in  each  other's 
clothes.  Flaminio  returns,  discovers  the  disguise, 
angrily  beats  Pantalone  off  the  stage,  and  quarrels 
with  Flaminia.  The  Spanish  Desperado  comes  back 
to  continue  his  suit  and  is  sent  packing  by  Flaminio. 
Enter  Pantalone  and  Arlecchino  armed  to  the  teeth. 
Pantalone  attacks  Flaminio,  but  Flaminia  and  Ar- 
lecchino separate  the  two,  and  Flaminio  and  Fla- 
minia are  quickly  reconciled.  Franceschina  and  Ar- 
lecchino coquette  and  are  likewise  reconciled,  and 
the  four  dance  merrily  together  and  disappear.  The 
guests  applaud,  showing  great  amusement,  and  the 
players  all  troop  back  at  once.  Isabella  throws  a 
purse  to  a  page,  who  in  turn  throws  it  to  Arlecchino. 
Arlecchino  skips  about,  tossing  the  purse  in  the  air, 
and  the  players  troop  out  again,  bearing  their  prop- 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  239 

erties  with  them.  Whereupon  Isabella  rises,  bidding 
her  guests  to  a  feast.  The  music  starts  up  boldly, 
and  Isabella  leads  the  way,  the  court  following  with 
laughter  and  conversation. 


Lady  Jane  Grey 

Before  I  went  into  Germanic,  I  came  to  Brodegate  in  Leicestershire, 
to  take  my  leaue  of  that  noble  Ladie  lane  Grey,  to  whom  I  was 
exceding  mochbehdldinge.  Hir  parentes,  the  Duke  and  Duches,  with 
all  the  houshold,  Gentlemen  and  Gentlewomen,  were  hunting  in  the 
Parke :  I  founde  her,  in  her  Chamber,  readinge  Phaedon  Platonia 
in  Greeke,  and  that  with  as  moch  delite,  as  som  ientlemen  wold 
read  a  merie  tale  in  Bocase.  ...  I  remember  this  talke  gladly, 
both  bicause  it  is  so  worthy  of  memorie,  and  bicause  also,  it  was 
the  last  talke  that  euer  I  had,  and  the  last  tyme  that  euer  I  saw 
that  noble  and  worthie  Ladie.  Roger  Ascham's  Scholemaster. 

A  PAGE  runs  into  the  courtyard  at  Bradgate 
carrying  a  mounting-block,  and  a  hunting- 
horn  sounds  in  the  distance.  The  Marquess  and 
Marchioness  of  Dorset  enter  in  riding  costume.  The 
marquess  commands  that  the  horn  again  be  sounded 
to  summon  the  laggards,  and  the  marchioness  calls 
imperiously  for  her  falcon,  while  at  her  impatient 
bidding  a  page  runs  in  haste  for  the  Lady  Jane,  who 
has  failed  to  join  the  hawking  party.  Jane  enters 
with  a  timid  air,  clothed  in  a  house-dress  of  soft 
blue,  which  becomes  her,  and  carrying  a  big  leather- 
bound  book ;  she  is  followed  by  old  Ellen,  the  nurse. 


240     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Her  mother  chides  Jane  sharply  because  she  has  not 
made  ready  for  the  hunt,  and  the  marquess  com- 
mands that  she  go  prepare  to  join  them,  in  spite  of 
her  pleading  that  she  be  left  to  read  through  one  long 
quiet  day.  As  the  marquess  and  marchioness  speak 
their  harsh  words  and  Jane  turns  away  bitterly  dis- 
appointed, a  page  announces  Master  Roger  Ascham. 
Ascham  comes  forward, — a  small  dark  figure  in 
wine-colored  velvet,  with  a  shrewd,  kindly  face, — 
saying  that  he  has  neared  Bradgate  on  his  way  into 
Germany  as  the  king's  envoy.  Before  he  is  able  to 
explain  further  he  is  brusquely  interrupted  by  the 
marchioness,  who  declares  that  he  shall  join  the 
company  in  the  hunt,  and  speak  to  them  as  they  go 
forth.  Ascham,  however,  insists  that  he  has  only  an 
hour  to  spend,  and  that  he  wishes  to  spend  that  hour 
in  converse  with  the  Lady  Jane,  whose  learning  and 
whose  wit  he  has  come  greatly  to  admire.  The  mar- 
quess yields  reluctantly,  a  horn  is  again  sounded, 
horses  in  rich  trappings  are  brought,  the  party 
mounts,  and  other  riders  enter  on  horseback.  They 
all  sweep  off  the  stage  to  the  left,  disappear  behind 
the  trees  as  they  turn  upon  the  road  below,  are  heard 
to  clatter  over  the  bridge,  and  presently  are  seen 
galloping  along  the  further  side  of  the  lake  and 
up  the  slope  of  the  hill.  Grooms  and  pages  follow 
running,  and  "The  Hunt  is  Up"  is  heard  from  a 


THE   PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  241 

distance.  Lady  Jane  and  Ascham  watch  the  party 
through  an  open  space  in  the  trees,  and  Ascham  asks 
how  it  is  that  she  will  lose  such  pleasure  in  the  park, 
to  which  she  replies  earnestly  that  all  their  sport  is 
but  a  shadow  to  the  pleasure  she  finds  in  Plato.  She 
confides  to  him  at  length,  hesitatingly,  that  she  seeks 
her  books  as  a  refuge ;  daily  they  bring  to  her  more 
and  more  of  pleasure.  Ascham  then  tells  her  that 
ever  his  hope  has  been  that  learning  might  become 
a  house  of  play  and  pleasure,  not  of  fear  and  bond- 
age: now  his  hope  has  become  a  truth,  for  learn- 
ing in  her  is  freedom  and  delight.  Lady  Jane  gains 
courage  as  they  talk  of  Plato,  and  she  tells  him  of 
a  little  treatise  which  she  has  made  bold  to  write — 
in  Greek  —  which  she  will  show  to  him  if  he  will 
put  his  wit  into  a  comment  upon  it.  As  they  pre- 
pare to  go  to  her  closet,  Ascham  begs  that  she  will 
give  him  as  a  token  in  return  for  his  commentary, 
a  letter  written  by  her  own  hand  in  Greek,  when 
he  shall  be  gone  into  Germany.  They  go  off  deep  in 
conversation,  old  Ellen  following  them,  picking  up 
the  scarf  and  handkerchief  which  Lady  Jane  has 
dropped,  and  shaking  her  head  in  despair  as.  she 
hobbles  away.  The  faint  sound  of  a  hunting-horn 
is  heard  in  the  distance. 


242     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 
Elena  Lucrezia  Cornaro 

Socrates  :  Let  us  not  seem  to  spare  mind  and  knowledge.  Let  us 
ring  their  metal  bravely,  and  see  if  there  be  unsoundness  in  any  part, 
until  we  have  found  out  what  is  purest  in  their  natures.  Plato's 
Philebus. 

A  BOISTEROUS  crowd  of  Italian  students  in 
black  caps,  short  bright-colored  jackets,  and 
knickerbockers  enter  to  await  the  ceremony  of  the 
election  of  Elena  Lucrezia  Cornaro,  a  Venetian,  to 
the  doctorate  of  the  University  of  Padua.  They  dis- 
pute warmly  as  to  whether  a  degree  should  be  con- 
ferred upon  a  woman.  Some  are  enthusiastic,  some 
scornful,  others  fearful;  they  argue  Elena's  learning, 
the  propriety  of  bestowing  an  honor  upon  her  pub- 
licly, and  its  possible  eifect  upon  other  women.  One 
student  dodges  out  and  calls  mockingly,  *'What 
is  wisdom  in  a  woman ! ' '  and  there  are  both  cheers 
and  protests  from  the  crowd.  Suddenly  all  are  qui- 
eted by  the  approach  of  Elena's  father,  who  comes 
upon  the  scene  with  pride  and  dignity,  seemingly 
conscious  of  the  scrutiny  which  he  attracts.  A  cathe- 
dral bell  tolls ;  and  the  students  catch  sight  of  the 
statejy  procession  which  is  appearing  on  the  left. 
The  name  ' '  Elena  Cornaro ' '  is  passed  from  one  to 
another,  the  music  of  a  processional  is  heard,  and 
the  standard  bearers  and  those  who  carry  the  insig- 
nia of  the  doctorate  slowly  approach.  They  are  fol- 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  243 

lowed  by  two  doctors,  then  by  Elena,  who  walks 
with  her  promoter,  Rinaldini,  the  clerk  of  the  uni- 
versity, members  of  the  clergy,  other  doctors  and 
gentlemen,  two  by  two.  Elena  wears  gray  faced  with 
rose,  the  others  rich  robes  of  green,  blue,  purple,  and 
dark  crimson.  As  the  procession  reaches  the  dais, 
those  who  precede  Elena  stand  aside  and  allow  her 
to  pass  as  through  an  aisle,  and  she  seats  herself  in 
a  large  chair  at  the  centre,  the  music  continuing 
until  she  has  taken  her  place.  The  doctors  stand 
near  her  chair,  the  clerk  sits  upon  a  low  stool  at 
the  foot  of  the  steps  facing  her,  and  the  others  are 
grouped  on  the  dais.  Rinaldini  then  steps  forward 
to  present  Elena  for  public  honor,  as  one  who  has 
devoted  her  whole  mind  to  the  acquirement  of  vir- 
tue and  wisdom,  saying  that  in  conclusion  of  the 
usual  rigorous  trial  which  has  been  given  to  her 
intellectual  powers,  she  will  now  read  in  Greek  a 
passage  chosen  at  random  from  Aristotle,  and  will 
expound  the  passage.  The  clerk  brings  forward  a 
large  book,  which  Rinaldini  opens,  and  Elena  arises 
amid  complete  silence.  She  reads  the  passage  before 
her  clearly  and  fluently  in  Greek ;  then  in  answer  to 
the  questions  of  the  doctors  explains  its  meaning, 
and  quotes  another  passage  on  the  same  subject. 
There  is  a  mild  murmur  of  applause  from  the  stu- 
dents. ''This  figure  of  the  boat  and  the  sailor," 


244    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

asks  Rinaldini,"is  it  consistent  with  the  earlier  one 
which  you  gave,  that  the  body  and  soul  may  not  be 
separated?  How  can  you  reconcile  the  two?  "  Elena 
speaks  out  clearly,  with  unhesitating  assurance: 
"And  how  can  I,  or  how  can  you,  most  learned 
doctor?  And  what  philosopher  has  not  tried  through 
all  the  ages  and  in  vain.  Even  Alexander  Aphrodisi- 
ensis  refuses  to  allow  the  analogy,  unless  we  sub- 
stitute '  the  art  of  the  pilot '  for  the  pilot  himself. ' ' 
The  crowd  cheers  her  answer  boldly,  "Cornaro," 
' '  Cornaro, "  ' '  a  noble  reply. ' '  Elena  then  compares 
the  reasoning  of  Aristotle  with  that  of  Plato,  quot- 
ing in  Greek,  and  says :  **  Thus  we  see  that  Aris- 
totle, with  a  more  earthly  reasoning,  doubts  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  while  Plato  believes  the  origin 
of  the  soul  to  be  divine."  As  she  concludes  her  ar- 
gument the  students,  not  to  be  withheld,  break  into 
loud  cheers  and  bravas,  again  shouting  her  name, 
' '  Elena  Cornaro, ' " '  the  Venetian, ' '  now  completely 
won  over.  The  doctors,  too,  show  their  appreciation 
of  her  triumph,  and  the  insignia  bearers  mount  the 
dais.  At  this  point  the  entire  grouping  around  the 
dais  is  like  that  in  the  west  window  of  the  Vassar 
College  Library.  The  crowd  becomes  silent  as  Ri- 
naldini  speaks  solemnly :  ' '  Elena  Lucrezia  Cornaro 
Piscopia,  the  sacred  body  of  doctors  and  philoso- 
phers of  this  great  University  of  Padua  has  judged 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  ATHENA  245 

you  most  worthy  to  be  awarded  the  laureate  in  phi- 
losophy, and  has  elected  you  to  its  doctorate,  and 
to  all  the  advantages  and  privileges  which  you  as 
doctor  are  entitled  to  use  and  enjoy."  One  insignia 
bearer  then  places  a  laurel  wreath  upon  EUena's 
head,  the  other  sets  the  ermine-bordered  mozetta 
about  her  shoulders,  and  Rinaldini  places  a  ring 
upon  her  finger,  speaking  in  Latin  as  he  formally 
confers  the  degree.  There  is  a  trumpet  flare  of  mu- 
sic, the  students  throw  their  caps  into  the  air  and 
shout  boisterously,  Elena's  father  presses  forward, 
and  amid  great  applause  Elena  and  Rinaldini  step 
down  from  the  dais.  As  the  procession  moves  away, 
the  students  break  into  the  Gaudeamus  igitur  and 
follow  singing,  gathered  in  a  close  band,  arms 
locked  over  shoulders. 

''^Gaudeamus  igitur^ 
Juvenes  dum  sumus. 
Gaudeamus  igitur^ 
Juvenes  dum  sumus. 
Post  jucundam  juventutem.. 
Post  molestam  senectutem^ 
Nos  habebit  humus — 
Nos  habebit  humus.'''* 

The  students  soon  wind  off"  among  the  trees,  the 
stage  is  empty  for  a  moment,  and  music  is  played 
which  takes  on  a  solemn  strain.  The  priestesses  of 


246     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Athena  enter,  and  the  goddess  reappears.  With  a 
majestic,  compelling  movement  Athena  raises  her 
spear;  and  from  the  right  come  the  first  of  a  long 
procession,  Sappho  with  her  maidens  and  dancers, 
these  followed  by  Hortensia  and  the  Roman  crowd, 
then  Hilda  and  the  nuns,  Oswy  and  the  thanes  of 
Oswy,  Marie  de  France  with  the  court  of  King 
Henry  and  Queen  Eleanor,  Isabella  with  her  gay 
party.  Lady  Jane  Grey,  Ascham,  and  the  riders  to 
the  hunt,  Elena  Cornaro  and  the  learned  doctors,  all 
making  together  as  they  pass  a  rich  unbroken  mov- 
ing pattern  of  color,  the  fabric  of  the  Web  of  Know- 
ledge. Last  come  the  band  of  Italian  students,  sing- 
ing. Once  more  they  wind  off  among  the  trees,  and 
their  Gaudeamus  grows  faint,  but  now  an  echo  rises 
from  the  top  of  the  hill  behind  the  audience.  Athena 
again  lifts  her  spear  compellingly.  The  echo  grows 
in  power,  the  Gaudeamus  again  becomes  clear,  and  a 
great  throng  of  singing  girls,  bright-clad  in  the  cos- 
tumes of  to-day,  stream  down  the  slope  and  singing 
pass  in  a  long  procession  before  the  goddess,  their 
song  changing  to  the  new  Alma  Mater  as  they  march . 
They  too  wind  away.  Their  song  grows  faint  and 
is  lost.  Dusk  has  fallen.  The  priestesses  silently  de- 
part. There  is  a  flare  of  light,  a  cloud  of  smoke,  and 
Athena  vanishes,  slowly  and  alone. 


Other  Features  of  the  Celebration 


Vassar  Milestones:  A  Play 

COMPOSED  BY  ALUMNAE 

Under  the  direction  of  Elizabeth  E.  Wellington^  class  o/"'01, 

and  staged  by  the  Dramatic  Committee  of  the 

JSTew  York  Branch  of  Vassar  Alumnae 

IN  groups  of  scenes  from  three  periods,  with  a 
prologue  which  entered  the  past  before  Vassar 
College  was  founded,  and  an  epilogue  which  looked 
to  the  future,  '*  Vassar  Milestones ' '  unrolled  in  dra- 
matic form  much  that  has  been  significant  in  the 
development  of  the  college.  A  thread  of  romance 
held  the  sequence  of  the  scenes,  the  child  Jennie  in 
the  prologue,  who  told  Matthew  Vassar  that  she 
wanted  ^'to  study  about  all  sorts  of  things — birds 
and  Indians  and  Chinamen  and  stars, — oh,  most  of 
all  about  the  stars,"  becoming  one  of  the  first  stu- 
dents of  the  college,  and  marrying  Arthur  Niles,  Mr. 
Vassar's  secretary;  Jeannette  Niles,  their  daughter, 
holding  the  centre  of  the  scenes  in  the  nineties ;  and 
Jean  Fairley,  the  daughter  of  Jeannette,  who  has 
married  her  room-mate's  brother,  typifying  the  stu- 
dent of  the  present  day. 

The  prologue  shows  Matthew  Vassar  in  his  study 
pondering  the  project  of  spending  part  of  his  for- 
tune as  a  monument  to  his  name.  He  is  visited  by 
Lydia  Booth,  his  niece,  who  has  come  to  talk  with 


250     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

him  of  Jennie  Brown,  whose  tuition  she  wishes  Mr. 
Vassar  to  pay  at  her  school.  The  discussion  quickly 
takes  a  general  turn.  Mr.  Vassar  shows  much  of 
the  then  conventional  opinion  as  to  the  education  of 
women,  saying  that  the  oven  doors  are  the  only  gates 
of  learning  that  concern  a  woman ;  but  Lydia  Booth 
is  roused  to  what  she  believes  to  be  a  need,  and 
in  a  glow  of  inspiration  urges  her  uncle  **to  brave 
the  world's  opinion,  and  offer  to  women  what  Yale 
and  Harvard  offer  to  men. "  Mr.  Vassar  is  stirred  by 
her  enthusiasm;  he  plans  to  talk  with  Dr.  Jewett, 
of  whose  sympathy  with  such  an  idea  he  is  already 
aware,  and  to  drive  with  his  niece  and  Jennie  Brown 
out  to  the  old  Mill  Cove  Farm.  The  prologue  ends 
as  he  meditates,  *' Vassar  College!  Vassar  Female 
College!  Well,  why  not — why  not!  " 

The  period  of  the  "great  experiment"  begins 
with  a  scene  in  the  parlors  of  Main  —  then  simple 
and  bare,  with  curtainless  windows — at  the  open- 
ing of  the  college  fifty  years  ago.  There  arrive  a  min- 
ister and  his  studious  daughter  from  Peekskill;  a 
Mrs.  Leroy  who  thinks  it  may  sometime  be  aufait 
to  say  that  her  two  girls  have  graduated  from  this 
Vassar  Female  College;  a  garrulous  and  reminis- 
cent Mrs.  Wilton,  whose  daughter  is  "really  not 
at  all  like  other  girls;"  a  teacher  who  wishes  to 
become  a  student,  Jennie  Brown,  and  other  young 


OTHER  FEATURES  251 

women  whose  serious  intent  is  apparent.  They  are 
met  by  Miss  Lyman ,  Professor  Hinkel,  and  Profes- 
sor Mitchell.  'Enery  enters  with  baggage  and  offers 
his  disparaging  opinion  of  education  for  women: 
the  talk  throughout  reveals  incongruities  as  well 
as  hopefulness  and  purpose.  ''Of  course  girls  ought 
to  be  well  educated,"  declares  Mrs.  Wilton,  ''and 
I  am  especially  particular  about  the  practical  things 
that  they  will  be  sure  to  need,  such  as  French  for 
going  abroad  and  chemistry  for  housekeeping.  I 
have  always  said  that  woman's  sphere  was  the  home 
circle,"  she  rattles  on,  "and  that 's  why  I  ventured 
to  speak  about  the  lace  curtains."  Miss  Lyman  is 
stately  and  quiet;  she  possesses  a  shrewdness  of 
insight  which  becomes  apparent  in  her  replies  to 
Mrs.  Leroy  and  Mrs.  Wilton.  The  curtain  falls, 
and  rises  again  on  the  same  room  in  the  evening  of 
the  same  day,  showing  Dr.  Raymond,  Miss  Ly- 
man, Miss  Mitchell,  and  Professor  Hinkel.  They  are 
weary,  aware  that  a  great  task  lies  before  them,  yet 
exalted.  "It  is  a  beautiful  chaos,"  says  Dr.  Ray- 
mond. "The  problems  are  all  new  and  strange; 
there  are  no  precedents."  "True,"  replies  Miss 
Mitchell  characteristically.  "But  if  the  earth  had 
waited  for  a  precedent,  it  would  never  have  turned 
upon  its  axis." 

The  second  scene  shows  a  ' '  dome-party ' '  in  the 


252     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Observatory,  at  which  rhymes  are  read,  stories  ex- 
changed, and  a  song  sung  to  Miss  Mitchell  to  the 
tune  of  ' '  The  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic. ' '  Even 
in  the  lighter  turns  of  the  talk  Miss  Mitchell  is 
revealed  as  direct,  a  little  austere,  with  a  fine  and  sim- 
ple breadth  of  understanding. ' '  Mingle  the  starlight 
with  your  lives, ' '  she  counsels  the  girls  at  one  point, 
"and  you  won't  be  fretted  by  trifles."  The  period 
closes  with  a  scene  representing  the  first  Founder's 
Day.  An  evergreen  arch  which  bears  the  words 
' '  Welcome  to  the  Founder ' '  is  set  up  in  front  of 
Main,  'Ejiery  assisting.  When  all  is  arranged,  and 
Miss  Lyman  has  made  her  inspection  of  costumes, 
observing  the  length  of  skirts  and  the  manner  in 
which  gloves  have  been  put  on,  the  groups  of  stu- 
dents form  a  wide  circle  about  the  arch,  and  Mr. 
Vassar  enters  with  Dr.  Raymond.  * '  Gladly  we  wel- 
come thee.  Father  and  honored  guest,"  the  song 
composed  for  the  occasion,  is  sung.  A  girl  steps  for- 
ward, curtseys,  and  speaks  a  greeting  to  the  Founder 
in  verse.  Dr.  Raymond  then  formally  addresses  Mr. 
Vassar,  telling  him  that  by  vote  of  the  faculty  the 
anniversary  of  the  Founder's  birthday  is  to  be  annu- 
ally observed  with  commemorative  exercises,  and 
that  the  students  have  asked  to  have  the  celebration 
of  this  day  left  in  their  hands.  Mr.  Vassar  is  sur- 
prised and  deeply  touched ;  he  tells  those  gathered 


OTHER  FEATURES  253 

before  him  that  Vassar  College  is  now  theirs,  theirs 
to  elevate,  theirs  to  beautify,  theirs  to  honor,  theirs 
to  adorn ;  but  his  voice  breaks,  and  he  turns  aside, 
saying  that  this  is  more  happiness  than  he  can 
bear.  Leaning  on  Dr.  Raymond's  arm,  he  walks 
away.  The  students  hesitate,  but  follow,  singing  the 
first  Alma  Mater. 

' '  In  the  Nineties ' '  shows  the  room  of  Jeannette 
Niles  and  Dorothy  Fairley  on  the  morning  of  the 
first  Field  Day.  Jeannette  bursts  in,  wearing  gym- 
nasium bloomers  and  blouse,  having  made  a  record 
for  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  yard  hurdles,  and 
finds  her  mother  (Jennie  Brown),  who  has  arrived 
unexpectedly.  Mrs.  Fairley  does  not  understand  the 
new  forms  of  exercise  which  her  daughter  has  been 
practicing ;  she  recalls  the  simple  swings  which  Mr. 
Vassar  caused  to  be  put  on  the  lawns,  and  the  pleas- 
ant excursions  in  tricycles  which  the  students  of  a 
later  day  used  to  take.  There  are  certain  activities, 
she  thinks,  in  which  it  is  not  suitable  for  young  wo- 
men to  engage.  She  is  interrupted  by  Oshima  San,  a 
Japanese  girl,  who  comes  to  consult  her  friends,  dis- 
tressed because  after  she  has  read  all  the  books  which 
the  honorable  professor  has  assigned,  she  has  become 
a  socialist  * '  by  true  religion ' '  —  and  she  is  to  marry 
a  prince.  *' Chuck  him,"  says  Dorothy.  ''Fklucate 
him, ' '  says  Jeannette,  and  the  girls  break  into  a  mock 


254     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

argument,  Jeannette  jumping  upon  a  table  and  ha- 
ranguing quotations  from  a  recent  debate,  ''Does  " 
the  higher  education  unfit  man  for  matrimony  ? ' ' 
"We  maintain  that  it  does,"  shouts  Dorothy,  and 
goes  on  quickly,  "Will  knowledge  of  Greek  help 
him  to  understand  the  furnace?  Will  differential  cal- 
culus pay  the  butcher?  Or  will  philosophy  convince 
the  butcher  that  he  is  better  off  unpaid?  No.  He 
and  the  butcher  will  both  remain  dissatisfied."  The 
hilarious  fun  shocks  Mrs.  Niles,  and  the  outburst 
subsides.  There  is  talk  about  the  new  economics 
courses,  about  the  "Antigone,"  which  is  soon  to  be 
given  in  Greek,  and  the  new  Alumnae  Gymnasium. 
Girls  enter  dressed  in  black  and  white  to  represent 
cosines;  they  have  come  to  show  their  costumes 
for  the  ' '  trig ' '  ceremonies.  The  curtain  falls  as  they 
begin  to  rehearse  their  dance. 

The  second  scene  "in  the  nineties"  shows  Tom 
Fairley  and  his  wife  Jeannette  awaiting  Dorothy 
Fairley,  now  an  instructor,  in  her  room  on  the  night 
when  Dr.  Taylor  is  to  announce  his  decision.  Dr. 
Taylor  has  received  a  call  to  the  presidency  of  Brown . 
Tom  thinks  that  a  woman's  college  cannot  hold  him 
in  the  face  of  so  great  an  honor,  and  Jeannette  is 
disconsolate.  A  reporter  comes  in  to  make  sure  that 
he  may  send  off  his  article  announcing  Dr.  Tay- 
lor's acceptance  of  the  call;  he  quotes  his  headlines: 


OTHER  FEATURES  255 

* '  Oldest  and  Best-Known  Woman's  College  Cannot 
Hold  Prominent  Educator  against  Call  of  Man's 
University."  Even  Professor  Ely,  who  stops  for  a 
moment  to  see  Jeannette,  thinks  the  probabilities 
are  that  Dr.  Taylor  will  go.  But  at  that  moment  the 
sound  of  enthusiastic  clapping  and  cheering  bursts 
into  the  corridors  as  the  girls  pour  out  from  the  old 
chapel,  and  Dorothy  Fairley  flings  open  the  door 
breathlessly  announcing  that  Dr.  Taylor  is  to  stay. 
He  has  said  that  the  greatest  need  and  the  greatest 
opportunity  lie  at  Vassar;  and  that  he  will  devote 
the  rest  of  his  working  life  to  the  cause  of  women's 
education.  A  hearty  song  in  serenade  is  heard,  and 
Professor  Ely  remarks  emphatically:  "Well,  young 
man,  we  have  seen  the  'Female'  come  oiF  the  col- 
lege at  last." 

The  scene  of  the  modern  period,  '*The  New 
Springtime,"  is  laid  out  of  doors.  A  group  of  girls 
are  taking  down  Republican  and  Democratic  post- 
ers to  make  room  for  Socialist  placards.  Hamilton 
Spencer,  a  young  business  man,  enters,  and  meets 
Dorothy  Fairley,  now  a  warden :  he  wishes  to  en- 
gage a  young  college  graduate  for  an  important  po- 
sition in  his  establishment.  An  anti-suffrage  parade 
marches  across  the  stage,  bearing  signs  which  read : 
**  Woman's  place  is  in  the  home!"  A  socialist  band 
follows,  with  Jean  Fairley,  a  senior,  haranguing  the 


256     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

crowd.  They  pass  on,  and  Mrs.  Fairley  and  her 
mother,  Mrs.  Niles,  arrive,  having  caught  sight  of 
Jean  in  the  distance  making  a  stump  speech.  Mrs. 
Fairley  is  shocked;  she  thinks  the  whole  proceeding 
improper  and  unwomanly;  but  her  mother  is  re- 
minded that  she  herself  had  been  shocked  when 
she  found  Mrs.  Fairley  —  in  the  nineties — wearing 
gymnasium  bloomers  and  shouting  from  a  table  in 
mock  argument.  "Unwomanly,"  adds  Mrs.  Niles 
speculatively.  ''That  is  what  they  called  me  too." 
Dorothy  Fairley,  Jean,  and  Hamilton  Spencer  re- 
enter ;  to  the  amazement  of  her  mother  and  grand- 
mother Jean  promises  to  consider  the  position  which 
Mr.  Spencer  offers;  and  Mr.  Spencer  leaves.  Mrs. 
Fairley  speaks  despairingly  of  the  changes  which 
have  taken  place  in  the  college;  it  was  all  different 
in  her  day.  She  believes  in  a  certain  amount  of  free- 
dom, but  certainly  not  in  ''ranting  on  street  corners 
about  the  vote,"  or  in  "this  absurd  effort  to  com- 
pete with  men  in  their  own  fields."  Dorothy  Fairley 
insists  that  it  is  a  good  thing  for  Jean  and  others 
like  her  to  go  out  and  see  what  society  is  made  of, 
and  that  the  new  age  will  be  one  of  co-operation 
rather  than  of  competition;  she  thinks,  too,  that  it  is 
into  this  new  era  that  Vassar,  with  her  new  presi- 
dent and  her  old  traditions,  will  lead.  They  all  move 
away  at  length  to  watch  the  spring  dance  which  is 


OTHER  FEATURES  257 

to  take  place  on  the  lawn  where  they  are  standing. 
Dancers  enter,  the  figure  of  Spring  leading  a  train 
of  fauns  and  nymphs,  and  there  follows  a  dance  of 
spring  characteristic  of  modern  out-of-door  May 
festivals.  Jean  is  one  of  the  fauns.  The  stage  dark- 
ens as  the  dancers  disappear,  and  the  girl  Jean,  still 
as  a  faun,  comes  back  with  Mrs.  Niles.  Jean  declares 
that  she  would  rather  be  a  faun  than  a  secretary, 
but  Mrs.  Niles  cannot  be  wholly  reconciled  either  to 
fauns  or  to  secretaries :  she  quotes  the  motto  of  the 
anti-suffrage  parade.  Jean  quickly  rejoins  that  she 
feels  to-day  as  if  the  whole  world  were  her  home ; 
and  Mrs.  Niles  grants  that  people  have  come  by 
habit  to  say  to  women:  *'Thus  far  shalt  thou  go, 
and  no  further. "  "  We  are  going  as  far  as  we  can, ' ' 
says  Jean  enthusiastically.  *' Something  stronger 
and  greater  than  we  is  pushing  us."  She  is  be- 
coming argumentative  when  her  mother  calls.  She 
jumps  up.  ''Yes,  mother,  yes,  grandmother,"  she 
answers,  running  off*.  "I'll  be  with  you  in  a  little 
while."  Mrs.  Niles,  alone,  murmurs:  ''Ah,  what 
changes!  Great  changes  in  this  old  Mill  Cove  Farm. 
.  .  .  I  can  see  him  now.  I  can  see  him  now." 


The  Historical  Exhibition  of 
Physical  Training 

UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF 

HARRIET  ISABEL  BALLINTINE 

Director  of  Physical  TYaining  at  Vassar  College 

It  is  settled,  therefore,  as  a  maxim  in  the  administration  of  the 
college,  that  the  health  of  its  students  is  not  to  be  sacrificed  to  any 
other  object  whatever :  and  that,  to  the  utmost  possible  extent,  those 
whom  it  educates  shall  become  physically  well-developed,  vigorous, 
and  graceful  women,  with  enlightened  views  and  wholesome  habits 
in  regard  to  taking  care  of  their  own  health  and  others  under  their 
charge.  From  the  first  Catalogue,  1865. 

ON  Tuesday  afternoon,  October  twelfth,  at  two 
o'clock  there  was  given  in  the  Athletic  Circle 
an  exhibition  which  illustrated  the  development  of 
physical  training  in  the  college  from  the  time  of  its 
opening  to  the  present  day.  The  various  features  of 
indoor  gymnastics  were  exhibited  upon  a  broad  plat- 
form which  faced  bleachers  erected  on  the  south- 
west side  of  the  Circle.  The  outdoor  sports  were 
shown  upon  the  open  field. 

A  parade  first  passed  along  the  running-track,  led 
by  a  group  of  riders  mounted  side-saddle  and  wear- 
ing the  long  full  habits  of  the  sixties ;  after  these 
marched  a  class  of  students  in  ankle-length  gray  flan- 
nel suits  with  scarlet  sashes,  representing  the  earli- 
est period,  and  a  longer  modern  procession,  some 
in  bloomers  with  sailor  waists  or  middy  blouses. 


OTHER  FEATURES  259 

some  in  accordion-pleated  class-dancing  nostumes. 
At  the  end  of  the  parade  rode  a  modern  group, 
cross-saddle,  in  close-fitting  coats,  knickerbockers, 
and  high  boots.  Music  began  as  the  last  of  the  mod- 
ern riders  galloped  away ;  and  the  class  in  gray  and 
scarlet  took  their  places  on  the  platform,  where  they 
showed  such  simple  gymnastics  as  were  practiced 
in  the  early  Calisthenium.  A  light  wand-drill  of 
restrained,  exact  movements  and  easy  variations 
was  performed,  and  a  series  of  rhythmic  dumb-bell 
exercises  —  the  * '  disappearing  dumb-bell ' ' — fol- 
lowed, set  to  the  ''Anvil  Chorus."  Croquet,  one  of 
the  ' '  healthful  feminine  sports ' '  to  which  ' '  all  pos- 
sible encouragement"  was  to  be  given,  according  to 
the  first  ''Prospectus,"  was  played  upon  the  lawn 
by  young  ladies  in  crinolines. 

In  contrast  to  these  early  forms  of  physical  train- 
ing came  the  active  indoor  gymnastics  and  field 
sports  introduced  at  Vassar  in  the  nineties  and  still 
popular  at  the  present  time.  A  skillful,  rapid  drill 
in  class  fencing  was  executed.  Vigorous  exercises 
on  parallel  bars  and  the  vaulting-horse  exemplified 
modern  indoor  gymnastics  with  apparatus.  On  the 
field  beyond  the  running-track  games  of  hockey 
and  basket-ball  were  played  with  full  teams,  and  a 
large  group  of  students  taking  part  in  the  running 
and  standing  broad-jumps,  the  fence  vault,  hurdle 


260    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

races,  and  a  fifty  yard  and  one  hundred  yard  dash, 
reproduced  the  sports  of  the  modern  field  day.  A 
series  of  muscular  free  exercises,  typical  of  the 
hardy,  elastic  forms  of  indoor  training  introduced 
in  1906,  was  practiced  in  unison  by  a  class. 

Elxamples  of  aesthetic  dancing,  which  belongs  to 
an  early  tradition  at  Vassar,  closed  the  programme. 
The  Founder  himself  sanctioned  instruction  in  dan- 
cing for  students  of  the  college,  writing  to  the  Board 
of  Trustees  in  1861 :  ''Years  ago  I  made  up  my 
judgment  on  these  great  questions  in  the  religious 
point  of  view,  and  came  to  a  decision  favorable  to 
amusements.  I  never  practiced  public  dancing  in  my 
life,  and  yet  in  view  of  its  being  a  healthful  and  grace- 
ful exercise,  I  heartily  approved  it,  and  now  recom- 
mend its  being  taught  in  the  College  to  all  pupils 
whose  parents  or  guardians  desire  it."  As  early  as 
1877,  square  dancing  was  occasionally  substituted 
for  the  required  gymnastics,  and ' '  fancy  steps' '  and 

marching  calisthenics ' '  were  often  used  as  part 
of  the  indoor  training.  The  dancing  exhibited  was 
typical  of  the  period  between  1898,  when  aesthetic 
dancing  was  formally  introduced,  and  the  present 
day.  An  interpretative  solo  was  danced;  and  to  the 
music  of  a  ballet  from  Gounod's  ''Faust,"  a  polka- 
mazurka  by  Strauss,  and  a  Russian  folk-dance, 
three  group  dances  were  presented  by  a  class. 


The  Alumnae  Luncheon 

AT  half-past  twelve  o'clock  on  Monday,  October 
-^  ^  eleventh,  a  procession  of  the  classes  assembled 
in  front  of  the  Main  Building,  and  w^ith  banners 
floating,  singing  class  songs,  marched  around  the 
south  end  of  Main  to  the  lawn  between  the  Con- 
servatory and  Music  Hall,  each  class  led  by  three 
of  its  members  dressed  in  the  fashions  of  its  college 
period.  Trios  in  hoop-skirts,  panniers,  and  basques 
were  followed  at  intervals  by  groups  in  velvets  or 
brocades  trimmed  with  elaborate  puffings  and  plait- 
ings,  by  others  in  ruffled  muslins  and  picture  hats, 
in  bright  silks  with  gored  skirts  and  leg  o'  mut- 
ton sleeves,  or  in  high-necked  jacket  sweaters,  golf 
capes,  stout  walking-skirts  and  sailors,  until  there 
finally  appeared  a  long  line  in  the  familiar  costumes 
of  recent  years.  The  procession  broke  up  under  the 
trees,  rugs  were  spread  and  banners  planted,  mak- 
ing a  gayly  picturesque  scene,  and  a  collation  was 
served. 


The  Alumnae  Meeting 

AT  a  quarter  before  two  o'clock  on  Monday  a 
-^  A.  special  meeting  of  the  Associate  Alumnae  was 
called  in  the  Assembly  Hall  for  the  double  pur- 
pose of  considering  the  plan  for  a  million  dollar  en- 
dowment fund  and  a  proposal  to  establish  a  Vassar 
quarterly.  Mrs.  Ferris  J.  Meigs,  President  of  the  As- 
sociate Alumnae,  was  in  the  chair.  President  Mac- 
Cracken  explained  the  plan  for  a  million  dollar  fund, 
saying  that  the  proposal  to  raise  a  million  for  endow- 
ment had  come  last  year  from  the  General  Endow- 
ment Committee,  that  it  had  been  welcomed  by  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  Trustees,  and  fully  ap- 
proved by  the  Board  of  Trustees  at  its  annual  meet- 
ing in  June.  Arrangements  have  been  made  with 
the  General  Education  Board  by  which  that  Board 
agrees  to  give  to  the  college  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  provided  the  remaining  eight  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  is  raised  by  the  college  itself,  an  amount 
which  must  be  pledged  by  October  1,  1916,  and 
actually  given  by  October  1, 1917.  According  to  the 
conditions  of  the  Board,  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars  of  the  million  may  be  used  for  buildings 
and  equipment ;  the  remainder  is  to  be  devoted  to 
educational  endowment.  President  MacCracken  an- 
nounced that,  exclusive  of  class  gifts,  two  hundred 


OTHER  FEATURES  263 

and  seventy -five  thousand  dollars  had  already  been 
given  toward  the  fund.  This  sum  includes  two  gifts 
of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  each  made  by  Mrs. 
Elon  H.  Hooker,  class  of  '94,  and  Mrs.  Avery  Coon- 
ley,  class  of  '96,  for  an  alumnae  house. 

Louise  P.  Sheppard,  class  of  '96,  Chairman  of 
the  General  Endowment  Committee,  announced  the 
gifts  of  the  classes.  The  total  amount  pledged  at  that 
time  was  two  hundred  and  eleven  thousand  dollars, 
which  included  a  gift  by  the  class  of  '70  suffi- 
cient to  complete  the  Ellen  H.  Richards  Fund,  and 
a  gift  of  six  thousand  dollars  for  the  Department  of 
Chemistry  by  Mrs.  James  H.  Williams,  class  of 
'70.  But,  as  Miss  Sheppard  said,  it  was  impossible 
to  make  a  final  statement  of  amounts,  for  the  pledges 
were  rising  hourly.  By  the  end  of  Anniversary  Week 
the  class  gifts  had  been  increased  to  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  which,  with  the 
amount  announced  by  President  MacCracken,  made 
a  total  of  half  a  million  then  subscribed  toward  the 
fund.  And  formal  efforts  to  raise  the  fund  had  hardly 
begun.  The  meeting  received  all  announcements  of 
gifts  with  enthusiastic  applause,  and  the  loyal  sup- 
port of  the  Associate  Alumnae,  together  with  their 
approval  of  the  plan  for  the  million  dollar  fund,  was 
pledged  to  President  MacCracken  by  a  rising  vote. 

The  report  of  a  special  committee  appointed  to 


264    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

draw  up  plans  for  an  alumnae  quarterly  was  sub- 
mitted by  Elizabeth  E.  Wellington,  class  of  '01,  on 
behalf  of  that  committee,  which  consisted  of  Ada 
Thurston,  class  of '80,  Mrs.  John  A.  Sanford,  class 
of  '83,  Elizabeth  F.  Hopson,  class  of  '05,  and  Miss 
Wellington.  Miss  Wellington  said  that  an  insistent 
demand  for  an  alumnae  periodical  had  come  from  the 
alumnae  themselves,  and  that  the  plan  was  favored 
by  editors  of  the  ''Miscellany,"  past  and  present, 
who  felt  that  a  separation  of  the  alumnae  depart- 
ment from  the  undergraduate  magazine  was  desir- 
able both  for  alumnae  interests  and  for  the  interests 
of  the ' '  Miscellany. ' '  Miss  Wellington  described  the 
growth  of  other  alumnae  publications  and  gave  a 
practical  estimate  of  the  cost  of  a  quarterly  similar 
in  size  and  appearance  to  the  * '  Smith  College  Quar- 
terly," also  reporting  that  ten  alumnae  had  pledged 
one  hundred  dollars  each  to  secure  the  initial  ex- 
penses of  a  quarterly.  After  a  short  discussion.  Miss 
Wellington's  recommendation  was  unanimously 
carried  that  the  Associate  Alumnae  become  sponsor 
for  the  publication  of  a  quarterly  periodical,  with  an 
editorial  board  to  be  appointed  by  the  Executive 
Committee  or  by  a  special  committee  appointed  by 
that  Committee,  this  board  to  serve  for  three  years. 
Several  minor  announcements  were  made  and  the 
meeting  adjourned. 


Music 
Organ  Recital 

TIUS   NOBLE,  Ml 

Of  St.  Thomas's  Church,  New  York,  formerly  of  York  Minster, 

England 

Sunday,  October  10,  1915 

Concerto  in  G  Minor,  Camidge;  Choral  Prelude,  Wachet 
Auf,  Bach;  Barcarolle,  Stemdale  Bennett;  Air  and  Vari- 
ations fi-om  Symphony  in  D,  Haydn;  Solemn  Prelude, 
Elegy,  Finale,  Noble;  Vox  Angelica  et  Adoration,  Dubois; 
Sonata  in  A  Minor  (Andante  non  troppo.  Andante,  Alle- 
gro con  flioco),  Borowski. 


Two  Concerts 
Of  the  Russian  Symphony  Orchestra 

MODEST  ALTSCHULER,  Conductor 

Tuesday,  October  12, 1915 

Programme  of  Concert  at  3.30  p.m. 

Part  I 
Suite  in  D  (Air,  Gavottes,  Bourree,  Gigue),  Bach;  Sym- 
phony No.  6,  Pathetique,  First  Three  Movements  (Adagio, 
Allegro  non  troppo.  Allegro  con  grazia.  Allegro  molto 
vivace),  Tschaikorusky ;  Tone  Poem,  Finlandia,  Sibelius. 


266     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Part  II 
Overture,    Sakuntala,    Goldmark;   Andante  cantabile  for 
strings,  Tschaikowsky ;  Allegro  moderato  pastorale  from  the 
Symphonietta,  Ippolitoff-Ivanoff;  Rackozy  March,  Berlioz. 

Frogramme  of  Concert  at  8  p.m. 

Part  I 
Academic  Festival  Overture,  Brahms;  Symphonic  Tableaux, 
The  Three  Palms,  Spendiaro-w;  Suite  in  D  (Air,  Gavottes, 
Bourr^e,  Gigue),  Bach;  Two  Caucasian  Sketches  (In  the 
Aul,  March  Sardan),  Ippolitoff-Ivanoff. 

Part  II 
Rackozy  March,  Berlioz;  Berceuse,  Dance  of  the  Dwarfs 
from  the  Suite,  Nur  and  Anitra,  Ilyinski ;  Symphony  No.  6, 
Path^tique,  First  Three  Movements  (Adagio,  Allegro  non 
troppo.  Allegro  con  grazia.  Allegro  molto  vivace) ,  Tschai- 
iozusky. 


Receptions 

TRUSTEES,  officers,  and  friends  of  the  college 
were  at  home  on  Tuesday  afternoon,  October 
twelfth,  from  three  to  six  o'clock,  in  Taylor  Hall, 
the  Library,  the  Main  Building,  the  New  England 
Building,  the  Vassar  Brothers  Laboratory,  the  San- 
ders Laboratory,  the  Goodfellowship  Club  House, 
the  Swift  Memorial  Infirmary,  and  the  Observatory, 
the  centre  of  the  groups  in  each  building  being,  so 
far  as  was  possible,  the  departments  of  adminis- 
tration or  instruction  most  closely  associated  with 
the  building.  Guests  were  given  an  opportunity  to 
see  the  college  buildings  and  equipment  as  well  as  to 
meet  members  and  friends  of  the  college.  The  Presi- 
dent and  the  President  Emeritus  received  in  Taylor 
Hall. 

Representatives  of  the  undergraduate  organiza- 
tions were  at  home  to  the  student  delegates  on  Tues- 
day evening,  October  twelfth,  from  eight  to  ten 
o'clock  in  Taylor  Hall. 


The  Anniversary  Dinners 

ON  Wednesday  evening,  October  thirteenth,  at 
six  thirty  o'clock  a  dinner  was  given  in  the 
Students  Building  for  delegates  to  the  college,  rep- 
resentatives of  the  alumnae,  representatives  of  the 
city,  and  trustees  and  officers  of  the  college.  At  the 
same  time  dinners  for  the  delegates  to  the  intercol- 
legiate student  conference  and  for  Vassar  College 
students  were  given  in  all  of  the  residence  halls. 
President  MacCracken  was  toastmaster  at  the  din- 
ner in  the  Students  Building,  and  the  student  presi- 
dents of  the  halls  acted  as  toastmistresses  at  the 
dinners  in  the  residence  halls.  The  general  subject 
of  the  after  dinner  speeches  was  *  *  The  College  and 
the  Community." 

That  the  colleges  for  women,  since  they  are  so 
highly  organized,  are  in  themselves  a  community, 
was  the  fact  emphasized  by  the  first  speaker  at  the 
dinner  in  the  Students  Building,  Ellen  Fitz  Pendle- 
ton, President  of  Wellesley  College.  In  consequence 
of  such  organization  these  colleges  constantly  run  the 
danger  of  thinking  themselves  more  than  a  com- 
munity, more  even  than  a  city, — indeed,  a  world. 
But  there  is  nothing  which  can  bring  the  college  so 
quickly  to  a  sense  of  its  own  unimportance  as  to  find 
itself  faced  by  the  regulations  of  the  community  in 


OTHER  FEATURES  269 

which  it  lives ;  it  is  made  to  feel  the  pulse  of  the  larger 
world,  and  the  lesson  is  excellent,  particularly  for 
the  undergraduate.  This  is  the  great  contribution  of 
the  community  to  the  college.  On  the  other  hand  the 
college  has  a  very  definite  contribution  to  offer  to 
the  community.  For  the  teachers  within  the  college 
it  is  a  privilege  constantly  to  be  associated  with  those 
who  are  fresh,  who  are  adventurous,  who  are  ready 
to  take  the  world's  burdens  upon  their  shoulders; 
it  is  also  a  privilege  for  the  community  to  see  the 
eagerness  with  which  college  students,  both  men  and 
women,  go  out  and  face  the  problems  of  life,  and  to 
see  as  well  the  actual  efficiency  with  which  student 
organizations  are  managed.  The  share  of  the  under- 
graduates in  Vassar's  celebration  is  itself  an  exam- 
ple of  these  qualities.  The  real  contribution,  then,  of 
the  college  to  its  immediate  community  lies  in  con- 
vincing the  ordinary  citizen  of  the  ordinary  college 
town  that  the  youth  of  this  country  are  ready,  by 
their  training,  by  their  magnificent  team-work,  by 
their  hearty  co-operation  with  one  another,  by  their 
ability  to  sink  individual  likes  and  dislikes,  to  as- 
sume the  responsibility  of  citizenship. 

The  historic  antagonism  between  town  and  gown 
is  practically  obliterated,  said  Edward  Bliss  Reed, 
Professor  of  English  in  Yale  University ;  yet  misun- 
derstanding occasionally  arises.  It  is  plainly  the  duty 


270     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

of  the  gown,  because  of  its  organization  and  because 
of  its  historic  traditions,  to  take  the  lead  in  prevent- 
ing misunderstanding.  There  is  a  mild  tolerance, 
perhaps,  on  the  part  of  the  town  toward  the  gowns- 
man. The  feeling  may  come  in  part  because  the 
interests  of  the  town  are  financial,  and  in  this  day 
of  big  business,  from  the  financial  point  of  view  the 
wearer  of  the  gown  is  interesting  chiefly  as  a  curi- 
osity. And  if  the  town  regards  us  with  benevolence 
merely,  we  of  the  gown  are  certainly  not  poor  in 
spirit;  we  have  our  little  fling  at  the  town.  We  re- 
gard the  townsman  as  rather  weak  in  thought,  for- 
getting that  when  we  apply  these  terms  we  usually 
mean  that  the  unfortunate  individual  does  not  think 
as  we  do.  But  it  is  not  enough  that  we  feel  a  kindly 
benevolence  toward  each  other.  Town  and  gown 
must  of  course  be  united.  America  is  the  greatest 
experiment  in  the  world  to-day ;  and  that  experiment 
is  not  concluded.  Our  democracy  is  on  trial ;  our  very 
education  is  on  trial,  and  we  must  prove  its  worth. 
Surely,  said  Professor  Reed,  our  education  was  not 
meant  for  self-development  alone,  —  to  send  the  in- 
vidual  down  the  lonely  path  of  self-culture.  If  edu- 
cation does  not  tend  to  make  the  whole  country  hap- 
pier and  better,  then  certainly  something  is  wrong 
with  it ;  if  the  relations  between  town  and  gown  are 
not  what  they  should  be,  then  our  education  is  not 


OTHER  FEATURES  271 

what  it  should  be.  We  must  join  in  a  common  ideal. 
Like  the  English  peasants  in  Masefield's  poem,  col- 
lege and  community  must  see  a  '  *  city  never  built  by 
hands,"  a  city  which  college  and  community  can 
build  together. 

How  does  the  theory  work  out?  Are  the  college 
communities  the  best  communities?  Are  they  the 
model  towns?  Do  the  gownsmen  do  their  real  work 
in  the  community  ?  It  is  difficult  for  the  gownsman 
to  leave  his  task  and  plunge  into  the  work  of  the 
city ;  and  he  has  a  sufficient  excuse.  In  his  present 
position  he  must,  to  hold  his  post,  be  an  inspiring 
teacher,  a  productive  scholar,  a  capable  organizer, 
a  skilled  diplomat  in  the  matter  of  departmental  re- 
lations, a  magnetic  personality  attracting  the  warm 
heart  of  the  undergraduate  and  the  cold  heart  of 
the  philanthropist.  Who  can  wonder  that  he  shrinks 
from  civic  work !  As  a  partial  solution  of  his  prob- 
lem the  college  must  frankly  release  from  some  small 
portion  of  their  academic  duties  those  of  its  officers 
who  are  fitted  to  serve  on  school  boards,  library 
boards,  boards  of  health,  housing  committees,  and 
the  like,  that  they  may  do  their  work  in  the  commu- 
nity. So  far  as  the  college  itself  is  concerned,  the  col- 
lege faculty  which  is  broad-minded  enough  to  send 
its  members  into  the  heart  of  the  city  does  not  make 
them  less  efficient;  it  makes  them  more  efficient. 


272     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Some  three  centuries  ago,  George  Herbert,  speaking 
of  himself,  said  rather  bitterly, 

"  Whereas  my  birth  and  spirit  rather  took 
The  way  that  takes  the  town^ 
Thou  didst  betray  me  to  a  lingering  book^ 
And  wrap  me  in  a  gorvny 

To-day  the  scholar  with  his  "lingering  book," 
wrapped  in  his  gown,  must  take  the  road  that  takes 
the  town,  because  he  is  part  of  it.  It  is  never  enough 
that  town  and  gown,  the  college  and  the  commu- 
nity, merely  stand  together;  they  must  stand  for 
united  work  and  united  achievement. 

In  an  account  of  certain  outstanding  changes  of 
government  proposed  by  the  New  York  State  Con- 
stitutional Convention,  Jacob  Gould  Schurman, 
President  of  Cornell  University  and  Vice-President 
of  the  Convention,  drew  comparisons  between  the 
government  of  the  larger  community,  the  state,  and 
the  government  of  the  typical  college  or  university. 
Many  of  the  fundamental  problems  with  which  the 
state  is  struggling  and  which  were  discussed  by  the 
convention  have  already  been  solved  by  the  colleges. 
For  instance,  in  recommending  a  shortened  ballot 
the  convention  followed  at  a  distance  a  well-estab- 
lished college  practice.  A  board  of  college  trustees 
elects  a  president,  but  it  does  not  directly  choose  the 
other  officers  of  the  college ;  vacancies  are  filled  by 


OTHER  FEATURES  273 

the  nomination  of  the  president,  who  has  consulted 
with  the  heads  of  the  departments  concerned.  In 
eifect  the  method  is  that  of  the  short  ballot.  Again, 
the  budget  system  proposed  by  the  convention  is 
precisely  identical  with  that  used  in  most  colleges. 
Like  the  college  president,  who  submits  his  budget 
yearly  to  the  trustees,  the  governor  would  each  year 
submit  his  estimate  for  the  state's  expenditures  to 
the  legislature.  The  new  measure  for  extended  home 
rule  is  likewise  paralleled  by  a  usual  college  policy. 
Faculties  in  well-ordered  colleges  and  universities 
to-day  exercise  supreme  control  in  all  that  relates  to 
the  education  and  discipline  of  students,  and  in  all 
that  relates  to  investigation  and  research.  Just  so  the 
cities  of  New  York  State  will  have  exclusive  power 
to  regulate  and  manage  their  own  property,  affairs, 
and  government,  if  the  amended  constitution  is 
adopted.  However,  with  all  the  likenesses  between 
the  community  of  the  state  and  the  community  of 
the  college,  there  is  one  important  difference,  which 
entails  a  difference  in  government.  The  chief  execu- 
tive of  the  state  must  be  constantly  responsible  to 
the  people ;  with  a  long  term  he  can  evade  respon- 
sibility, since  the  influence  of  the  people  will  be  felt 
only  at  intervals.  A  short  term  for  the  state  execu- 
tive is  therefore  desirable.  On  the  other  hand  we 
assume  that  the  chief  executive  of  the  college  will 


274     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

remain  in  harmony  with  the  sovereign  authorities, 
and  we  demand  that  he  have  conditions  favorable 
to  efficiency.  A  reasonably  long  term  is  one  of  those 
conditions.  Closing  with  congratulations,  President 
Schurman  expressed  the  cordial  good  wish  that 
President  MacCracken's  administration  illustrate, 
as  that  of  Dr.  Taylor  had  illustrated,  the  theory  of 
the  long  term. 

In  the  college  where  he  presides,  the  members  do 
not  think  much  of  the  community  and  the  commu- 
nity does  not  think  much  of  them,  said  Thomas 
Mott  Osborne,  Agent  and  Warden  of  Sing  Sing. 
The  prison  problem  has  been  ignored  by  most  good 
people,  college  graduates  among  them,  yet  the  con- 
dition of  mind,  body,  and  soul  of  the  men  who  leave 
the  prison — there  are  fifteen  hundred  a  year  from 
the  four  state  prisons  of  New  York  alone — is  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  the  whole  community.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  men  now  in  these  state  prisons  are  re- 
cidivists ;  and  the  fact  constitutes  a  shocking  crit- 
icism of  the  old  prison  system.  By  its  brutality,  its 
mandate  of  silence,  its  surveillance,  its  rigidity,  this 
system  forbade  the  prisoner  the  life  of  a  human 
being ;  by  every  possible  means  his  initiative  was 
destroyed.  The  prison  should  rightly  be  a  place  of 
education ;  its  essential  problem  is  to  create  condi- 
tions through  which  its  members  may  become  capa- 


' 


OTHER  FEATURES  275 

ble  and  desirous  of  leading  useful  and  honest  lives. 
But,  as  Gladstone  once  said,  * '  It  is  liberty  alone  that 
fits  men  for  liberty,"  and  the  men  committed  to  the 
prisons  cannot  be  educated  for  a  free  life  without 
freedom.  You  must  train  the  muscles  used  in  the 
race  if  you  are  going  to  run  the  race  at  all.  Prisoners 
must  be  exercised  in  the  qualities  necessary  for  them 
to  use  when  they  come  out.  In  Sing  Sing  the  men 
now  move  about  freely ;  there  is  no  more  lock-step ; 
there  is  plenty  of  chance  for  physical  exercise ;  and 
most  important  of  all,  there  is  opportunity  for  men- 
tal and  spiritual  regeneration. 

What  we  all  need  to  learn  when  we  are  in  train- 
ing, whether  that  training  be  behind  the  wall  or  in 
the  open,  is  the  great  lesson  of  service ;  this  lesson 
the  prisoners  are  learning.  Come  down  and  talk  with 
the  men  in  the  yard,  pick  out  any  one  at  random, 
and  see  what  reaction  you  will  get.  You  will  find 
that  many  in  a  blind  way,  some  in  a  perfectly  inter- 
ested, and  some  in  only  a  half  interested  way,  are 
acquiring  the  sense  of  an  obligation  toward  society ; 
they  are  getting  the  notion  that  when  their  turn 
comes  they  must  pay  that  obligation.  One  of  the 
brightest  and  best  men  at  Auburn,  a  man  whose 
criminal  career  has  been  long  and  varied,  said  to  me 
last  summer :  *  *  I  can  see  clearly  now  that  society 
could  not  do  anything  with  me  except  send  me  to 


276     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

prison."  He  had  got  that  idea  because  he  himself, 
in  the  prison,  through  the  Mutual  Welfare  League, 
had  been  placed  in  a  position  where  he  had  to  deal 
with  offenders  against  the  discipline  of  society.  The 
most  living  duty  we  can  have  to-day  is  to  apply  the 
principles  of  democracy  to  our  prisons.  We  are  a 
practical  people,  but  we  have  dreamed  a  wonderful 
dream ;  we  have  dared  to  found  our  social  system 
upon  the  rock  of  the  Golden  Rule.  No  one  can  for 
a  moment  maintain  that  we  have  more  than  made 
an  approach  to  a  perfect  democracy,  but  we  are  try- 
ing to  translate  our  dream  into  a  reality.  As  a  part 
of  that  dream  some  of  us  have  had  a  vision  of  a 
re-constituted  prison  to  which  men  will  go  to  be  re- 
formed, made  better,  saner,  wiser,  more  wholesome. 
Those  of  us  who  have  dreamed  that  dream  —  we 
want  you  to  dream  it  too ;  and  we  want  your  help 
for  its  fulfilment. 

**The  College  and  the  Community,"  —  the  rela- 
tions between  the  two  as  they  bear  upon  student  life 
and  student  interests,  were  variously  interpreted  by 
the  speakers  at  the  dinners  in  the  residence  halls. 
President  Hadley  of  Yale  invited  a  comparison  be- 
tween the  larger  community  and  the  college  com- 
munity, saying  that  the  underlying  principles  of 
organization  are  identical.  The  college  leads  a  com- 
plex life  similar  to  that  of  the  city ;  in  both  there  are 


OTHER  FEATURES  277 

individuals  governed  by  public  opinion,  and  using 
public  opinion  more  or  less  skillfully  as  a  means  of 
pursuing  various  ends.  One  of  the  most  valuable 
lessons  that  the  student  can  learn  as  an  undergrad- 
uate is  an  understanding  of  the  practical  relation  be- 
tween individual  and  public  opinion.  It  is  precisely 
this  knowledge  which  can  make  college  standards 
useful  in  the  communities  in  which  we  live.  What 
the  community  requires  from  our  colleges  to-day  is 
not  so  much  higher  standards  as  it  is  more  intelli- 
gent practical  means  of  getting  those  standards  ac- 
cepted by  the  public,  of  making  them  effective  for  the 
welfare  of  the  body  politic ;  and  the  man  or  woman 
who  knows  how  to  organize  his  or  her  fellow-stu- 
dents for  effective  work  in  college  will  be  the  one 
to  do  the  same  thing  in  the  life  of  the  city  or  town 
afterward.  The  college  is  a  community.  You  have 
during  these  four  years  a  chance  to  experiment  with 
methods  of  becoming  useful  to  your  fellows ;  meth- 
ods of  bringing  home  whatever  message  you  have, 
of  gathering  the  power  of  the  community  behind 
that  message.  Margaret  Judson,  class  of  '03,  showed 
with  much  the  same  emphasis  that  the  college  stu- 
dent is  not  merely  preparing  for  life;  she  is  actually 
living.  Her  campus  activities  offer  her  the  oppor- 
tunity of  testing  the  theories  which  she  will  prac- 
tice in  the  larger  world  after  she  graduates. 


278     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

In  the  collegiate  education  of  women  there  has 
never  been  much  chance  to  develop  or  encourage  the 
scholar -recluse,  said  Elisabeth  Woodbr  id  ge  Morris, 
class  of  '92.  Begun  as  the  women's  colleges  were 
in  the  face  of  keen  challenge,  they  were  always  held 
bound  to  prove  a  close  and  practical  connection  with 
life.  Even  the  students  at  Vassar  of  the  nineties  felt 
obliged  to  prove  this  connection,  but  although  they 
were  more  conscious  than  is  the  student  of  the  pres- 
ent day  of  the  need  of  such  proof,  they  did  not  begin 
to  offer  it  as  does  the  modern  student.  They  were 
living  on  the  fringes  of  the  Victorian  era,  and  the 
Victorians  made  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  a  good 
heart  and  good  intentions  were  all  that  were  needed, 
especially  among  women,  in  order  to  help  the  com- 
munity. Good  hearts  and  good  intentions  must  not 
be  underrated,  but  for  most  occasions  it  is  also  use- 
ful to  have  a  good  head.  The  people  in  the  colleges, 
more  deliberately  and  more  successfully  than  any 
other  large  bodies  of  people,  have  set  about  making 
good  heads  available  for  the  expressing  of  good  hearts 
and  the  working  out  of  good  intentions.  They  are 
learning  and  teaching  the  limitless  power  of  straight 
thinking,  and  the  limitless  power  of  an  organized 
co-operation  which  can  use  without  choking  indi- 
vidual initiative.  This  is  fundamental  to  all  com- 
munity life.  It  is  what  our  American  communities 


OTHER  FEATURES  279 

especially,  with  their  hit-or-miss  methods,  their 
blithe  indiiFerence  to  the  value  of  good  planning  and 
expert  advice,  need  most  of  all  to  have  taught  them 
every  day  of  every  year. 

Helen  Morris  Hadley,  class  of  '83,  pictured  the 
changes  in  attitude  of  a  certain  city  toward  return- 
ing Vassar  graduates,  showing  that  college  women 
had  established  their  right  to  recognition  by  the  com- 
munity. The  first  attitude  was  that  of  awe.  The 
earliest  graduates  were  respected  and  admired,  but 
they  were  felt  to  be  something  quite  apart  from  other 
women.  The  next  stage  was  that  of  scorn.  One  au- 
thoritative lady  remarked  firmly :  '*  A  girl  is  sent  to 
college  for  two  reasons  only, — to  be  able  to  support 
herself  by  teaching,  or  in  the  hope  of  improving 
her  social  position.  My  daughter  needs  to  do  neither, 
and  so  she  will  not  go  to  college."  The  periods  of 
awe  and  of  snobbishness  passed,  but  for  a  time  it 
was  still  the  part  of  wisdom  to  hide  a  college  de- 
gree as  carefully  as  a  family  skeleton,  if  one  wished 
to  take  a  natural  part  in  the  life  of  the  community. 
Now  the  era  of  unconsciousness  has  been  reached : 
a  degree  passes  unnoticed;  a  woman  is  free  from 
prejudice  against  it;  while  it  stands  as  a  guarantee 
of  possible  efficiency. 

The  long  slow  growth  of  the  idea  that  woman  is  a 
member  of  the  community  was  traced  by  Dr.  Mary 


280     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Sherwood,  class  of  '83,  beginning  with  the  accept- 
ance of  the  fact  that  woman  had  a  soul,  when,  ac- 
cording to  legend,  the  question  came  to  a  vote  in  an 
eleventh  century  church  congress.  The  fact  that  she 
has  a  mind  has  received  its  triumphant  admission 
in  the  past  half  century  of  higher  education,  and 
we  are  now  living  in  an  era  which  will  accord  her 
full  rights  as  a  citizen.  As  a  member  of  the  commu- 
nity there  have  opened  to  her  many  fields  of  practi- 
cal community  work ;  she  can  assist  in  civic  house- 
keeping ;  she  can  engage  in  the  prevention  of  evils, 
physical  and  moral;  she  can  pursue  medical  re- 
search. With  the  increase  of  recognition  has  come 
an  increase  in  responsibility ;  she  must  now  take  her 
active  place  in  the  community.  The  need  of  the  *  *  so- 
cial mind,"  now  that  women  have  gained  recogni- 
tion by  the  community,  was  also  urged  by  Alice  Bar- 
rows Fernandez,  class  of  '00,  Director  of  the  Voca- 
tional Education  Survey  of  New  York  City.  Women 
must  accept  their  share  of  civic  responsibility,  said 
Mrs.  Fernandez.  They  must  be  willing  actively  to 
engage  in  civic  work,  even  though  that  work  often 
spells  drudgery. 

The  general  training  for  later  community  service 
which  the  college  can  give,  particularly  through  its 
curriculum,  was  stressed  by  a  number  of  speak- 
ers. The  first  aim  of  the  college  must  be  to  produce 


OTHER  FEATURES  281 

the  educated  person,  declared  President  Burton  of 
Smith ;  to  produce  the  individual  ' '  who  has  ac- 
quired a  broad  outlook  upon  life  as  a  whole, ' '  who 
feels  as  well  as  thinks  correctly,  who  has  the  ability 
to  weigh  evidence,  who  can  relate  himself  intimately 
and  directly  to  the  work  of  the  world.  Such  a  one 
has  become  socialized ;  he  has  entered  the  mind  of 
the  race ;  he  is  ready  to  take  his  place  in  the  commu- 
nity. Katharine  Blunt,  class  of  '98,  Assistant  Pro- 
fessor of  Home  Economics  in  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago, discussed  the  far-reaching  effects  of  the  inves- 
tigative habit  of  mind.  The  value  of  research  could 
not  be  over-estimated,  she  believed,  not  only  because 
scientific  discoveries  are  always  at  some  time  of 
positive  benefit  to  mankind,  but  also  because  the  in- 
vestigative spirit  is  fundamental  for  all  activity, 
whether  for  the  work  of  the  teacher,  the  house- 
keeper, the  business  person,  or  for  pure  science. 
President  Webb  of  Randolph-Macon  assumed  that 
the  college  frankly  admitted  its  debt  to  the  com- 
munity, and  insisted  that  the  best  preparation  for 
effective  leadership  in  future  years  is  the  steady 
pursuit  of  those  things  which  give  pertinency  and 
meaning  to  college  education.  The  great  gift  of  the 
college  is  the  gift  of  more  abundant  life ;  that  abun- 
dance can  be  shared  in  all  the  later  contacts  of  the 
individual. 


282     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

In  a  somewhat  similar  vein  President  MacMillan 
of  Wells  argued  that  preparation  must  be  made  in 
a  broad  manner  for  the  responsibilities  which  the 
community  expects  the  college  graduate  to  carry, 
and  showed  that  the  arts  curriculum  develops  a 
strength  and  power  which  can  later  be  turned  into 
any  channel.  The  college  must  be  an  institution 
where  long  views  of  the  past  and  of  the  future  dom- 
inate life  and  work,  where  temporary  whims  of  doc- 
trine are  evaluated,  where  faculty  and  students 
are  so  imbued  with  faith  in  their  high  calling  that 
they  cannot  be  distracted  by  the  popular  clamor  for 
immediate  results.  Such  an  institution  may  not  be 
wholly  popular  in  a  democratic  country,  nor  escape 
the  charge  of  being  exclusive  or  even  useless,  but 
as  the  years  roll  by  it  will  render  immeasurable  ser- 
vice to  the  real  college  community  which  is  the  na- 
tion and  the  world.  Breadth  of  intellectual  training 
as  the  main  contribution  of  the  college  was  also  em- 
phasized by  Lucy  Madeira,  class  of  '96,  Principal 
of  Miss  Madeira's  School.  The  college  should  be  the 
place  set  apart  where  learning  is  conserved,  she  said; 
the  place  to  which  the  community  looks  for  guidance 
in  things  intellectual,  the  flame  within  the  shrine  to 
which  the  pilgrim  returns.  Whatever  its  later  uses, 
the  culture  which  the  college  has  to  offer  should  rest 
upon  a  secure  foundation  of  exact  scholarship. 


OTHER  FEATURES  283 

As  to  the  practical  and  immediate  share  which 
the  college  student  should  take  in  community  life 
there  was  a  conflict  of  opinion.  A  closer  correlation 
of  college  studies  with  social  activities  was  urged 
by  Emelyn  B.  Hartridge,  class  of  '92,  Principal  of 
the  Hartridge  School.  If  the  chief  end  of  education 
is  not  the  development  of  intellectual  power  merely, 
but  the  formation  of  character, — character  trained 
and  habituated  to  think  in  terms  of  social  obligation, 
then  the  college  must  give  to  the  student  in  connec- 
tion with  her  studies  some  definite  knowledge  of  com- 
munity life,  before  graduation ;  if  the  gospel  of  the 
age  is  service,  she  must  have  her  apprenticeship. 
Samples  submitted  to  the  city  could  be  tested  in  the 
college  laboratories,  and  the  results  would  be  of  prac- 
tical community  value.  Students  in  social  science 
could  helpfully  co-operate,  under  supervision,  with 
workers  in  the  Juvenile  Courts,  the  Juvenile  Protec- 
tive Association,  and  the  Associated  Charities.  Back- 
ward children  in  the  city  schools  could  be  tested 
as  part  of  the  work  in  psychology.  With  the  aid  of 
competent  instructors  classes  in  house  sanitation  or 
domestic  art  could  be  organized  among  girls  in  the 
town.  Such  correlation  of  community  with  college 
interests  is  directly  in  line  with  the  work  already 
independently  begun  by  Vassar  students  in  the 
churches,  almshouses,  and  day  nurseries  of  Pough- 


284     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

keepsie  and  Arlington.  But  municipal  affairs  must 
be  approached  in  a  humble  spirit.  Students  must 
realize  that  they  are  indebted  to  the  city  for  the 
opportunity  to  learn  citizenship  at  first  hand. 

Possibilities  for  practical  work  in  the  community 
were  also  developed  by  Rossa  B.  Cooley,  class  of  '93, 
Principal  of  the  Penn  School,  and  by  Lida  Shaw 
King,  class  of  '90,  Dean  of  the  Women's  College 
in  Brown  University.  Miss  King  described  the  edu- 
cational work  among  the  young  women  of  Rhode 
Island  which  is  now  being  carried  on  by  undergrad- 
uates and  faculty  of  the  Women's  College.  Exten- 
sion courses  have  been  established,  and  an  effort  is 
being  made  to  see  that  the  girls  of  the  state  gain  the 
kind  of  education  which  they  want  and  need.  Miss 
Cooley  traced  the  growth  of  the  college-community 
idea  through  the  stages  of  antagonism  and  indiffer- 
ence to  that  of  co-operation,  and  suggested  that  Vas- 
sar  students  work  out  a  practical  plan  for  the  closer 
relationship  of  the  college  and  the  town.  The  college 
must  consider  the  whole  community  its  field,  she 
said.  The  community  must  become  as  vital  a  part 
of  the  college  as  are  its  students  and  buildings. 

A  radically  opposite  view  was  expressed  by  other 
speakers.  There  are  fundamental  differences  between 
the  college  and  the  town,  said  Marion  Reilly,  Dean 
of  Bryn  Mawr  College,  which  make  it  undesirable 


OTHER  FEATURES  285 

for  students,  as  students,  to  take  part  in  the  activities 
of  the  town,  and  for  the  townspeople,  as  represent- 
ing the  town,  to  take  part  in  the  activities  of  the 
college.  Both  town  and  college  are  organized  com- 
munities, but  they  are  organized  along  different  lines 
and  for  different  purposes.  The  student  community 
is  organized  along  lines  of  the  greatest  possible  sim- 
plicity, so  that  the  four  years  of  college  life  may 
give  the  maximum  of  opportunity  for  mental  devel- 
opment; the  town  is  organized  along  lines  of  the 
greatest  complexity,  so  that  the  community  may  get 
a  maximum  of  benefit  from  the  individual,  in  time, 
money,  and  interest.  Older  people  can  compromise 
with  the  situation  and  lead  both  lives,  but  in  youth 
compromise  is  undesirable.  For  the  student,  strength 
lies  in  his  or  her  uncompromising  intelligence.  The 
world  now  needs  first  of  all  men  and  women  who  have 
the  habit  of  clear  thought  and  an  irresistible  impulse 
toward  consistent  action ;  the  four  years  of  college 
should  afford  the  opportunity  for  supreme  growth  in 
judgment  and  mental  ability.  May  Lansfield  Keller, 
Dean  of  Westhampton  College,  also  expressed  the 
belief  that  the  best  contribution  of  the  college  to  the 
community  does  not  consist  in  immediate  and  local 
connections,  but  in  the  general  training  which  it  can 
give  its  students  for  leadership  in  the  community 
after  graduation ;  and  the  same  idea  was  developed 


286     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

by  James  L  Wyer,  Jr.,  Director  of  the  New  York 
State  Library.  The  college  will  best  serve  the  com- 
munity, he  argued,  not  by  formal,  sometimes  over- 
strained and  hysterical  efforts  toward  specific  social 
service,  but  by  sending  its  graduates  back  into  the 
community,  year  by  year,  fit  and  ready  for  such  in- 
formal stations  as  may  most  need  them.  For  college 
women  these  stations  and  this  community  service 
will  oftenest  be  in  the  home. 

Certain  broad  effects  of  the  college  upon  the  com- 
munity were  reviewed  by  Mary  E.  Richmond,  Di- 
rector of  the  Charity  Organization  Department  of 
the  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  who  spoke,  as  she 
said,  from  the  side  of  the  town.  The  great  service 
which  the  university  has  rendered  the  town  in  which 
she  grew  up,  said  Miss  Richmond,  was  to  supply  it, 
for  the  first  time,  with  a  ''through  draft "  of  ideas. 
With  the  opening  of  Johns  Hopkins  the  life  of  Bal- 
timore became  more  flexible,  more  varied,  more 
vivid.  Surely  no  service  to  the  community  can  be 
comparable  to  this  one ;  and  the  same  large  service  is 
needed  throughout  the  country,  in  many  communi- 
ties. The  groups  of  people  who  are  often  asked  to  act 
as  advisers  to  American  communities  would  agree 
that  these  communities  are  still  very  backward,  and 
that  nothing  would  further  their  social  welfare  so 
much  as  a  "  through  draft ' '  of  ideas,  an  overcoming 


OTHER  FEATURES  287 

of  the  tensions  and  insularities  of  prejudice.  They 
would  agree  further  that  the  colleges  are  the  insti- 
tutions which  can  best  fit  American  citizens  for  this 
service.  Yet  it  is  not  alone  through  the  study  of  so- 
ciology or  economics,  not  alone  through  social  ser- 
vice field  work  in  the  town  in  which  the  college  is 
placed  that  this  **  through  draft"  will  come  which 
can  refresh  the  life  of  our  cities ;  but  from  whatever 
courses  of  study,  whatever  college  activities  develop 
the  open  mind  and  give  it  energy  and  tone.  It  would 
be  easy  to  magnify  the  importance  of  any  specific 
services  rendered  by  undergraduates  within  a  spe- 
cific area,  but  we  cannot  enlarge  too  much  upon  the 
significance  and  value  of  good  mental  habits  in  com- 
munity service.  If  we  are  pledged  always  to  be  ' '  rad- 
ical" in  our  social  thinking,  or  always  to  be  **  con- 
servative," we  have  inevitably  a  certain  rigidity 
which  makes  for  insulation.  But  if  we  are  pledged 
to  a  habit  of  mind  that  is  at  once  fair  and  thorough, 
then  and  then  only  are  we  able  to  give  our  Ameri- 
can communities  what  they  most  need — always  pro- 
vided, of  course,  that  we  have  also  a  mind  to  work. 
Over  the  sluggish  and  unbending  muscles  of  our 
community  life — how  sluggish  and  how  unbend- 
ing you  can  hardly  realize  in  this  atmosphere — it  is 
pleasant  to  think  of  the  free  play  of  ideas,  the  spirit 
of  flexible  and  comprehending  participation  that  will 


288     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

come  back  to  our  cities,  to  relax  and  to  stimulate, 
with  each  return  home  of  a  class  of  graduates  from 
this  college. 


Exhibits 

THE  female  character  should  possess  the  mild 
and  retiring  virtues  rather  than  the  bold  and 
dazzling  ones ;  great  eminence  in  almost  anything  is 
sometimes  injurious  to  a  young  lady  ;  whose  temper 
and  disposition  should  be  made  to  appear  to  be  pliant 
rather  than  robust ;  to  be  ready  to  take  impressions 
rather  than  to  be  decidedly  marked ;  as  great  appar- 
ent strength  of  character,  however  excellent,  is  liable 
to  alarm  both  her  own  and  the  other  sex  ;  and  to  cre- 
ate admiration  rather  than  aiFection."  So  Erasmus 
Darwin  in  an  essay  on  *'The  Female  Character," 
contained  in  his  ' '  Plan  for  the  Conduct  of  Female 
Education  in  Boarding  Schools;"  and  much  the 
same  view  is  expressed  by  Hannah  More  in  her 
Accomplished  Lady, ' '  implied  in  her  * '  Coelebs  in 
Search  of  a  Wife, ' '  and  argued  by  certain  early  Vic- 
torians. To  be  sure, ' '  the  importance  and  necessity  of 
Female  Education  were  admitted."  Chemistry  in 
particular  was  thought  useful  to  women,  "suited 
to  their  talents  and  their  situation,"  but  even  this 
science  must  be  offered  with  limitations,  according 
to  Mrs.  Phelps  in  "The  Female  Student."  "From 
the  nature  of  chemical  experiments^  which  in  most 
cases  require  either  firmness  of  nerve,  unshrink- 
ing courage,  or  physical  strength,  and  sometimes  all 


290    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

these  qualities  combined,  woman  may  not  aspire  to 
add  to  the  stock  of  chemical  science  discoveries  of 
her  own ;  but,  gifted  with  the  intellectual  power  to 
trace  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  and  to  compre- 
hend the  wonderful  properties  of  matter  which  sci- 
ence reveals,  she  may  dare  to  raise  the  curtain  which 
conceals  the  operations  of  nature,  and  entering  her 
laboratory,  behold  the  grand  experiments  there  ex- 
hibited :  nor  should  it  be  considered  a  small  privi- 
lege that  she  is  permitted  to  share  in  the  sublime 
discoveries  of  science,  and  to  feast  on  the  banquet 
of  knowledge,  prepared  by  others." 

These  and  other  like  quotations  from  early  and 
mid-nineteenth  century  writers  on  the  mind  and 
proper  education  of  women  formed  a  preface  for  the 
historical  exhibits  shown  in  the  Library  and  in  the 
Students  Building  during  Anniversary  Week.  In 
plain  contrast  followed  Matthew  Vassar's  often 
quoted  opinion:  '*It  occurred  to  me  that  woman, 
having  received  from  her  Creator  the  same  intellect- 
ual constitution  as  man,  has  the  same  right  as  man 
to  intellectual  culture  and  development."  And  the 
testimony  of  actual  practice  at  Vassar  in  the  first 
years  was  added  in  a  statement  from  Professor 
Orton's  ' ' Liberal  Education  of  Women. ' '  ' '  Very 
likely  some  may  say  the  Vassar  course  of  study  is 
well  enough  in  theory,"  he  writes,  "but  too  strong 


OTHER  FEATURES  291 

in  practice.  But  the  'impossible'  is  done.  And  the 
facuhy  has  yet  to  receive  a  petition  for  a  lower  stan- 
dard. The  voice  of  womankind  is,  'Give  us  un- 
diluted knowledge.  We  can  digest  anything,  up  to 
least  squares;  but  we  cannot  feed  forever  on  gruel 
prepared  expressly  for  the  female  mind. ' ' '  Material 
of  many  kinds  in  the  exhibit  illustrated  the  progress 
of  the  ' '  impossible ' '  in  official  and  student  life  at 
Vassar  from  the  earliest  days  to  the  present  time. 
Personalities  which  shaped  both  practice  and  the- 
ory in  the  college  during  its  first  years  held  an  initial 
place  in  the  Library.  Several  portraits  of  the  Founder 
were  shown,  conspicuous  among  them  the  original 
Fxiouart  silhouette,  taken  at  Saratoga  in  1843 ;  and 
a  sketch  of  Mr.  Vassar's  life  as  well  as  an  indirect 
but  firmly  drawn  self-portrait  could  be  found  in  his 
short  autobiography.  "A  few  reminiscences  of  my 
life,"  he  called  it.  "And  would  not  have  written 
these ^  but  at  the  request  of  several  friends  with  refer- 
ence to  the  Institution  of  which  I  am  the  Founder." 
The  Founder's  diary,  in  four  small  compact  vol- 
umes, kept  during  the  construction  of  the  college 
buildings,  a  number  of  his  letters,  and  an  account 
of  his  death  at  the  college,  completed  the  suggested 
outlines  of  life  and  character.  President  and  Mrs. 
Raymond,  Maria  Mitchell,  Hannah  W.  Lyman, 
and  other  members  of  the  first  faculty  were  recalled 


292     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

by  groups  of  photographs,  with  which  were  arranged 
a  selection  from  letters  written  by  Miss  Mitchell 
and  Miss  Lyman,  the  account  of  the  award  to  Miss 
Mitchell  of  the  King  of  Denmark's  comet  medal, 
and  the  correspondence  relating  to  the  award.  Pam- 
phlet memorials  to  Miss  Lyman,  Miss  Mitchell,  and 
Milo  P.  Jewett  gave  contemporary  tributes  and  the 
essential  elements  of  biography. 

The  thoroughness  and  care  with  which  plans  were 
formulated  for ' '  the  grand  and  novel  enterprise, ' '  as 
it  was  called  in  a  report  of  a  committee  of  trustees, 
were  revealed  by  a  small  collection  of  official  docu- 
ments and  publications.  A  first  stage  in  actual  pro- 
gress was  suggested  by  the  printed  charter,  granted 
in  1861.  The  series  of  communications  of  Mr.  Vas- 
sar  to  the  trustees  showed  both  his  deep  concern 
for  the  complex  matters  of  college  policy  and  his 
far-reaching,  well-considered  judgments;  while  the 
broad  solicitude  of  the  first  trustees  was  recorded 
in  ' '  The  Proceedings  of  the  Trustees  at  their  First 
Meeting"  and  the  "Report  on  Organization  by  the 
Committee  on  Faculty  and  Studies. ' '  The ' '  Report ' ' 
was  printed,  according  to  a  characteristic  prefatory 
resolution,  because  "in  a  matter  of  so  vital  conse- 
quence as  the  organization  of  the  college,  it  is  due 
to  the  responsibilities  surrounding  the  position  held 
by  the  members  of  this  Board  before  the  world,  that 


OTHER  FEATURES  293 

every  Trustee  should  have  ample  time  for  mature 
deliberation  and  intelligent  action,"  and  also  that 
the  Board  ' '  should  have  the  benefit  of  the  generous 
criticism  and  friendly  suggestions  of  the  public 
journals,  and  of  eminent  teachers  and  educators 
throughout  the  country."  The  first  paragraph  ends 
with  a  conscious  distinction  and  emphasis :  ' '  It  is 
not  to  be,  then,  an  ordinary  academy  for  young 
ladies;  or,  simply  a  seminary  of  high  order;  it  is  to 
be  a  College. "Further  proof  of  thoroughness  ap- 
peared in  the  account  of  Dr.  Jewett's  visit  to  Europe 
in  1862,  undertaken  with  a  view  to  amplifying  the 
general  scheme ;  and  as  a  conclusion  to  the  period 
of  preparation  was  exhibited  the  '*  Prospectus  of 
the  Vassar  Female  College,"  issued  in  May,  1865, 
w  hich  set  forth  in  full  the  purposes  of  the  new  in- 
stitution. 

To  the  evidence  of  growth  in  educational  policies 
were  added  glimpses  of  external  development  and 
early  signs  of  public  recognition.  The  Founder's 
memoranda  noting  requisitions  for  the  site  of  the  col- 
lege, interesting  architectural  plans  by  T.  A.TefFt, 
submitted  but  not  used  because  of  the  death  of  the 
architect,  printed  specifications  by  the  architect  ac- 
tually chosen,  JohnRenwick,  Jr.,  and  photographs 
of  the  first  buildings,  reproduced  essentials  of  pro- 
gress  and  accomplishment.  A  long  and  glowing 


294    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

account  of  the  new  project  printed  in  the  *'  Pough- 
keepsie  Telegraph"  for  July  9,  1861,  was  shown, 
together  with  an  important  article  entitled  *'Vas- 
sar  Female  College,"  by  Moses  Coit  Tyler,  which 
appeared  in  **The  New  Englander "  for  October, 
1862,  and  contained  a  full  outline  of  plans  for  the 
college,  an  enthusiastic  discussion  of  the  possibilities 
of  college  education  for  women,  and  as  well,  a  bio- 
graphical sketch  of  the  Founder.  An  open  volume  of 
the  Poughkeepsie  Directory  for  1864-65  gave  a  de- 
tailed description  of  the  college  grounds  and  build- 
ings ;  and  the  graphic  reproduction  of  the  early  col- 
lege was  completed  by  a  group  of  quaintly  drawn 
views  of  the  campus  and  buildings,  taken  from 
an  article  entitled  *'What  are  They  Doing  at  Vas- 
sar?"  by  H.  H.  McFarland,  published  in  *'Scrib- 
ner's  Monthly"  for  August,  1871. 

Official  life  within  the  college  was  variously  indi- 
cated from  its  earliest  beginnings.  A  formal  printed 
letter  showed  the  admission  of  Maria  L.  Dickinson, 
class  of  '67,  probably  the  first  student  actually  re- 
corded for  entrance,  and  the  diploma  of  one  of  the 
first  four  graduates,  simply  and  briefly  phrased  in 
English,  told  its  special  story.  Something  of  the 
strict  and  simple  social  and  moral  regimen  of  the 
early  days  could  be  reconstructed  from  President 
Raymond's  printed  sermons  on  *'  The  Sin  of  Judg- 


OTHER  FEATURES  295 

ing"  and  ''The  Mission  of  Educated  Women," 
and  from  Miss  Lyman's  "Hints  to  Students," 
copies  of  which  were  placed  in  the  students'  rooms 
in  September,  1865.  The  beginnings  of  the  prob- 
lem of  student  government  appeared  in  a  number 
of  manuscripts  which  enumerated  the  duties  of  the 
"corridor  teachers,"  these  evidently  written  out  at 
the  request  of  Miss  Lyman.  A  "Student's  Man- 
ual" for  1872,  with  a  later  and  fuller  edition  of  the 
"Manual"  for  1862,  testified  to  growing  changes 
and  modifications  in  social  rules. 

Not  less  vivid  were  the  glimpses  of  college  life 
from  the  student  side.  The  small  leather-covered, 
iron-bound  trunk  in  which  Maria  L.  Dickinson 
brought  her  books  to  college,  and  which  ' '  served  as 
a  divan  in  our  room,  wrapped  about  with  Hattie 
Warner's  blanket  shawl,"  conjured  up  a  train  of 
suggestions,  as  did  the  books  themselves,  these  rang- 
ing from  Wayland's ' '  Moral  Science, ' '  Wayland's 
' '  Mental  Science ' '  (Volume  I , "  Intellect ; ' '  Volume 
II,  "SensibiHties"),  and  Randall's  "Reading  and 
Elocution, ' '  to  Gray's ' '  Botany. ' '  One  of  the  boot- 
jacks known  to  college  tradition  was  exhibited  ;  and 
pictures  of  student  rooms  and  of  Senior  Parlors, 
photographs  of  individual  students  and  of  groups 
and  classes, memorabilia  and  certain  personal  relics, 
combined  to  people  and  define  the  general  scene. 


296     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Copies  of  the  ' '  Vassariana, ' '  the  ' '  Transcript, ' ' 
the  "Vassar  Transcript,"  showed  the  beginning 
and  partial  evolution  of  the  student  publication,  and 
gave  as  well  a  fairly  definite  sequence  of  important 
student  events.  A  booklet  called  ''The  First  Epistle 
on  Matthew,"  by  Elizabeth  Williams,  class  of  '69, 
which  was  considered  sacrilegious  by  Miss  Lyman 
and  suppressed,  offered  a  bit  of  early  fun.  Class  insig- 
nia of 'all  the  classes  from  the  beginning  to  the  pres- 
ent day  made  a  conspicuous  sequence,  and  the  cere- 
monials of  Class  Day  and  Commencement  Day  in 
the  late  seventies  and  early  eighties  were  repro- 
duced by  illustrated  accounts  in  such  periodicals  as 
' '  The  Daily  Graphic"  and  "Frank  LesHe's. ' '  Pro- 
grammes of  all  sorts  from  1866  to  1900  showed  the 
ever-increasing  number  and  scope  of  extra-curric- 
ulum activities;  indeed,  through  all  the  material 
which  suggested  the  picture,  could  be  traced  the 
steady  growth  of  independent  student  interests. 

The  history  of  these  interests  from  1900  to  1915 
was  the  special  subject  of  the  exhibits  in  the  Stu- 
dents Building.  A  preliminary  chart,  arranged  in 
decades,  dated  the  beginning  of  each  organization 
and  noted  significant  changes  in  purpose  and  pol- 
icy; and  the  outlines  were  supplemented  by  an  abun- 
dance of  graphic  material.  For  Philaletheis,  photo- 
graphs of  Hall  Play  casts,  grouped  according  to 


OTHER  FEATURES  297 

the  dates  of  play  production,  showed  the  ambitious 
range  of  dramatic  effort  as  well  as  experiments  tried 
and  effects  achieved  in  the  way  of  costuming  and 
staging ;  while  scenes  from  plays  given  by  the  Club 
Frangais,  the  Deutscher  Verein,  and  the  Hellenic 
Society  illustrated  the  varied  dramatic  interests  of 
the  language  clubs.  Photographs  of  the  Founder's 
Day  plays  and  pageants  of  recent  years  took  impor- 
tant place,  the  May  Day  Revels  of  1914,  with  their 
lovely  "Masque  of  the  Four  Seasons"  memorable 
among  them,  and  other  typical  effects  in  pageantry 
were  reproduced  by  photographs  of  the  sophomore 
tree  ceremonies  from  1911  to  1915.  Commencement 
Day  and  Class  Day  processions,  photographs  of 
classes,  scenes  from  sophomore  and  junior  plays,  cir- 
cuses, and  parties.  Class  Day  books  and  joke  books, 
indicated  the  many  activities  of  class  organizations. 
Through  programmes  for  the  inter-class  and  inter- 
collegiate debates  could  be  traced  an  evolution  in 
subject-matter  and  even  in  committee  method.  Field 
Day  programmes,  records,  trophies,  and  a  collection 
of  banners  represented  athletics.  The  many  interests 
of  the  Christian  Association,  including  its  financial 
campaigns,  its  social  and  religious  work  in  Pough- 
keepsie,  the  founding  of  the  Student  Employment 
Bureau  (later  given  over  to  the  Students  Associa- 
tion), its  mission  and  Bible  study  classes  and  its 


298     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

social  service  bulletin  board,  were  outlined  by  special 
programmes,  reports,  posters,  and  notices.  The  ac- 
tivities of  the  Students  Association  were  similarly 
illustrated,  and  a  further  exhibit  touching  work  of 
the  Students  Association  was  arranged  in  the  Good- 
fellowship  Club  House,  where  posters,  programmes, 
and  photographs  showed  characteristic  occupations 
and  entertainments. 

As  a  kind  of  special  exhibit  appeared  a  fully  docu- 
mented critical  survey  of  student  life  and  student 
activities  through  the  fifty  years  of  Vassar's  history, 
in  the  anniversary  number  of  the  ' '  Vassar  Miscel- 
lany, ' '  issued  at  the  beginning  of  Anniversary  Week . 
An  essay  on  ' '  The  Social  Life  of  Vassar  Students ' ' 
creates  a  vivid  background  for  the  more  special- 
ized articles,  picturing  in  lively  detail  changes  in 
customs,  manners,  dress,  room  decoration,  frolics, 
and  even  in  college  vocabulary.  The  history  of  the 
Students  Association  is  traced  under  the  defining 
caption,  "An  Experiment  in  Democracy,"  and  the 
character  and  purposes  of  all  the  more  important  ac- 
tivities, including  that  of  the  "Miscellany"  itself, 
are  separately  developed.  Typical  press  comments  on 
student  life  at  Vassar  as  they  have  appeared  through 
the  years  are  made  to  open  a  suggestive  view  of 
current  opinion  in  an  article  called  * '  Vassar  in  the 
Newspapers ; ' '  and  chronological  lists  of  Philale- 


OTHER  FEATURES  299 

thean  plays,  debates,  and  athletic  records,  a  list  of 
the  speakers  at  Founder's  Day  celebrations,  a  list  of 
all  minor  clubs  with  a  brief  definition  of  purpose, 
arranged  in  the  order  of  their  foundation,  complete 
the  survey.  The  essays  are  illustrated  by  cuts  taken 
from  Lossing's  '^  Vassar  College  and  its  Founder," 
and  by  modern  photographs .  Carefully  organized  and 
interestingly  handled,  reaching  out  for  its  sources 
to  official  publications  of  the  college,  unpublished 
letters,  and  a  large  collection  of  student  minutes, 
records,  programmes,  and  publications,  the  special 
number  of  the  ^'Miscellany"  not  only  possesses  a 
peculiar  historical  value,  but  serves  to  put  in  perma- 
nent and  accessible  form  much  of  the  material  which 
formed  the  exhibits  in  the  Library  and  in  the  Stu- 
dents Building  during  Anniversary  Week. 


The  Semi-Centennial  Series 

Published  for  Vassar  College  by  the  Houghton  Mif- 
flin Company  under  the  Editorship  of  Margaret  Floy 
Washburn 

Elizabethan  Translations  from  the  Italian 

By  Mary  Augusta  Scott,  Ph.D.  (^.5.,  Vassar  1876), 
Professor  of  English  in  Smith  College 

Social  Studies  in  English  Literature 

By  Laura  Johnson  Wylie,  Ph.D.  (^.5.,  Vassar  1877), 
Professor  of  English  in  Vassar  College 

The  Learned  Lady  in  the  Eighteenth  Century 
By  Myra  Reynolds,  Ph.D.  (J.5.,  Vassar  1880),  Pro- 
fessor of  English  in  Chicago  University 

The  Custom  of  Dramatic  Entertainment  in  Shake- 
speare's Plays 

By  One  Latham  Hatcher,  Ph.D.  (^.5.,  Vassar  1888), 
Sometime  Associate  Professor  of  Comparative  Literature 
and  Elizabethan  Literature  in  Bryn  Mawr  College 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Variable  Stars 

By  Caroline  Ellen  Fumess,  Ph.D.  {A.B.^  Vassar  1891), 
Professor  of  Astronomy  in  Vassar  College 

Movement  and  Mental  Imagery 

By  Margaret  Floy  Washburn,  Ph.D.  (^.^.,  Vassar 
1891),  Professor  of  Psychology  in  Vassar  College 

The  Life  of  Brissot  de  Warville 

By  Eloise  Ellery,  Ph.D  (^.5.,  Vassar  1897),  Associate 
Professor  of  History  in  Vassar  College 


General  Programme 

of  the 

Celebration  of  the  Fiftieth  Anniversary 

of 

The  Opening  of  Vassar  College 

October  i  o  to  1 3 
1915 


Programme  of  the  Celebration 

Sunday,  October  lo 

At  10.45  o'clock 

Morning  Services  in  commemoration  of  the  opening 

of  Vassar  College,  held  at  Churches  in  Poughkeepsie. 

At  3.30  o'clock.  In  the  Chapel 

Religious  Service:  Sermon  by  William  Herbert 
Perry  Faunce,  President  of  Brown  University. 
Music  by  the  College  Choir. 

From  5  to  6  o'clock.  In  the  Circle 

Informal  Welcome  to  the  Student  Delegates. 

At  8  o'clock.  In  the  Chapel 

Organ  Recital:  By  T.  Tertius  Noble,  of  Saint 
Thomas's  Church,  New  York  City,  formerly  of 
York  Minster,  England. 


Monday,  October  1 1 

At  10  o'clock.  In  the  Chapel 

Alumnae  Commemoration. 

Invocation:  By  James  Monroe  Taylor,  President 

Emeritus  of  Vassar  College. 

Addresses: 

''Spacious  Days  at  Vassar,"  by  Mary  Augusta 


304     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Jordan,  Class  of  '76,  Professor  of  English  in 
Smith  College. 

''Geographical  Research  as  a  Field  for  Wo- 
men," by  Ellen  Churchill  Semple,  Class  of '82, 
of  Louisville,  Kentucky. 

"The  Highest  Education  for  Women,"  by  Julia 
Clifford  Lathrop,  Class  of  '80,  Chief  of  the  Chil- 
dren's Bureau,  United  States  Department  of  La- 
bor. 
Louise  Lawrence  Meigs,  Class  of  '91,  President 
of  the  Associate  Alumnae  of  Vassar  College,  pre- 
sided. 

Also  at  10  o'clock.  In  the  Students  Building 
Intercollegiate  Student  Conference  on  "The  Func- 
tion of  Non- Academic  Activities." 
Greeting:  By  Phebe  Briggs,  Chairman  of  the  Inter- 
collegiate Student  Conference  Committee. 
Addresses  : 

*  *  Extra  Curriculum, "  by  a  representative  of  Vas- 
sar College. 

' '  Types  of  Non- Academic  Activities  : ' ' 
"Dramatics,"  by  a  representative  of  Harvard 
University ;  '  *  Pageantry, "  by  a  representative  of 
Wellesley  College;  "College  Publications,"  by 
representatives  of  Smith  College  and  Yale  Univer- 
sity ;  "Town  Press  Work,"  by  a  representative 
of  New  York  University;  "Political  Clubs,"  by 


GENERAL  PROGRAMME  305 

representatives  of  RadclifFe  College  and  Williams 
College;  "Religious  Organizations,"  by  a  rep- 
resentative of  Oberlin  College ;  * '  Student  Self- 
Government,"  by  a  representative  of  Barnard 
College. 
Open  Discussion,  with  leading  speeches,  on  *'The 
Ideal  Function  of  Non- Academic  Activities." 

Irmarita  Kellers,  President  of  the  Vassar  College 
Students  Association,  presided. 

At  12.30  o'clock.  On  the  Lawn  between  the  Conservatory 
and  Music  Hall 

Costume  Procession  and  Singing.  Informal  Alum- 
nae Luncheon. 

At  1.45  o'clock.  In  the  Assembly  Hall 
Business  Meeting  of  the  Associate  Alumnae. 
Address:  By  President  MacCracken,  on  *'The  An- 
niversary Endowment." 

At  3  o'clock.  In  the  Out-of-Door  Theatre 
' '  The  Pageant  of  Athena, ' '  composed  and  presented 
by  Vassar  College  Students,  under  the  direction  of 
Hazel  MacKaye,  of  Washington.  For  Delegates,  in- 
vited Guests,  and  Alumnae. 

At  8  o'clock.  In  the  Students  Building 

* '  Vassar  Milestones. ' '  A  Play,  written  by  Alumnae, 

and  staged  by  the  Dramatic  Committee  of  the  New 


306     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

York  Branch  of  Vassar  Alumnae.  For  Delegates, 
invited  Guests,  and  Alumnae. 


Tuesday,  October  12 

At  10  o'clock.  In  the  Chapel 

Academic  Commemoration. 

Addresses: 

"Vassar's  Contribution  to  Educational  Theory 
and  Practice,"  by  James  Monroe  Taylor,  Presi- 
dent Emeritus  of  Vassar  College. 
"Women  and  Democracy,"  by  Emily  James 
Putnam,  Associate  in  History  in  Barnard  College. 
"New  Aspects  of  Old  Social  Responsibilities," 
by  Lillian  D.  Wald,  of  the  Henry  Street  Settle- 
ment, New  York  City. 

Henry  Noble  MacCracken,  President  of  Vassar  Col- 
lege, presided. 

Also  at  10  o'clock.  In  the  Students  Building 
Intercollegiate  Student  Conference  on  * '  The  Func- 
tion of  Non- Academic  Activities." 
Open  Discussion,  with  Leading  Speeches,  on  *  *  Pro- 
fessional or  Semi-Professional  Coaching,"  "The 
Basis  of  Membership  for  Undergraduate  Organi- 
zations," "Academic  Credit* for  Non-Curricular 
Work." 


GENERAL  PROGRAMME  307 

Irmarita  Kellers,  President  of  the  Vassar  College 
Students  Association,  presided. 

At  2  o'clock.  In  the  Circle 

Historical  Exhibition  of  Physical  Training  at  Vas- 
sar College,  under  the  direction  of  Harriet  Isabel 
Ballintine,  Director  of  Physical  Training  in  Vassar 
College. 

From  3  to  6  o'clock 

Receptions  to  Delegates,  invited  Guests,  and  Alum- 
nae. 

In  Taylor  Hall,  in  the  Library,  in  the  Main  Building,  in  the 
New  England  Building,  in  the  Vassar  Brothers  Labora- 
tory, in  the  Sanders  Laboratory,  in  the  Goodfellowship  Club 
House,  in  the  Swift  Memorial  Infirmary,  and  in  the  Obser- 
vatory 

At  3.30  o'clock.  In  the  Students  Building 
Orchestral  Concert:   By  the  Russian  Symphony 
Orchestra.  For  Student  ^Delegates  and  for  Vassar 
College  Students. 

At  8  o'clock.  In  the  Students  Building 

Orchestral  Concert:   By  the  Russian  Symphony 

Orchestra.   For    Delegates,   invited    Guests,   and 

Alumnae. 

From  8  to  10  o'clock.  In  Taylor  Hall 

Reception  to  Student  Delegates  by  Representatives 

of  the  Undergraduate  Organizations. 


308     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Wednesday,  October  i  3 

At  9.15  o'clock.  In  the  Library,  in  Taylor  Hall,  and  in 

Rockefeller  Hall 

Formation  of  the  Academic  Procession. 

At  9.45  o'clock 

The  Academic  Procession,  in  the  following  order : 
First  Division:  Grand  Marshal,  John  Leverett 
Moore;  the  Presiding  Officer,  the  President,  the 
President  Emeritus,  the  Speakers  of  the  Day. 
Second  Division:  Marshal,  Ida  Carleton  Thallon; 
the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Vassar  College,  the 
Regents  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New 
York. 

Third  Division:  Marshal,  Margaret  Floy  Wash- 
burn ;  Delegates  from  institutions  in  countries  other 
than  the  United  States,  Delegates  from  institutions 
in  the  United  States. 

Fourth  Division:  Marshal,  Aaron  Louis  Tread  well ; 
Representatives  of  the  Federal  Government,  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  State  of  New  York,  Representa- 
tives of  Dutchess  County,  Representatives  of  the 
City  of  Poughkeepsie,  Representatives  of  Arlington 
in  the  Town  of  Poughkeepsie. 
Fifth  Division:  Marshal,  Elizabeth  Hazel  ton  Haight; 
Special  Guests,  Officers  of  the  Associate  Alumnae 
of  Vassar  College,  Officers  of  the  Branch  Associa- 
tions of  the  Alumnae  of  Vassar  College,  Officers  of 


GENERAL  PROGRAMME  309 

the  Vassar  Students  Aid  Society,  Former  Officers 
of  Vassar  College. 

Sixth  Division:  Marshal, Eloise  Ellery;  Officers  of 
Government  and  Instruction  in  Vassar  College. 
Seventh  Division:  Marshal,  Irmarita  Kellers;  Del- 
egates to  the  Intercollegiate  Student  Conference, 
Representatives  of  Undergraduate  Organizations 
in  Vassar  College. 

At  10  o'clock.  In  the  Chapel 
The  Inauguration  of  President  MacCracken. 
Invocation :  By  Henry  Mitchell  MacCracken,  Chan- 
cellor Emeritus  of  New  York  University. 
Addresses: 

"The  Mystery  of  the  Mind's  Desire,"  by  John 
H.  Finley,  President  of  the  University  of  the 
State  of  New  York  and  Commissioner  of  Edu- 
cation. 

"The  Scholar  and  the  Pedant,"  by  George 
Lyman  Kittredge,  Professor  of  English  in  Har- 
vard University. 

"In  the  Cause  of  Learning,"  by  Henry  Noble 
MacCracken,  President  of  Vassar  College. 
Salutations:  By  Mary  Emma  Woolley,  President 
of  Mount  Holyoke  College ;  by  Virginia  Crocheron 
Gildersleeve,  Dean  of  Barnard  College ;  by  Arthur 
Twining  Hadley,  President  of  Yale  University, 
Hymn:  "Now  Thank  we  All  our  God." 


310     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Benediction :  By  Henry  Mitchell  MacCracken ,  Chan- 
cellor Emeritus  of  New  York  University. 

William  Caldwell  Plunkett  Rhoades,  Chairman  of 
the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Vassar  College,  presided. 

At  2.30  o'clock.  In  the  Out-of-Door  Theatre 

*'The  Pageant  of  Athena,"  Second  Performance. 

For  Delegates,  and  for  invited  Guests  from  Pough- 

keepsie. 

At  6.30  o'clock.  In  the  Students  Building 
Dinner  for  Delegates,  Representatives  of  the  Alum- 
nae and  of  the  City,  and  Officers  of  the  College. 
Speeches  on  "The  College  and  the  Community." 

Also  at  6.30  o'clock.  In  the  Residence  Halls 
Dinner  for  Delegates   to   the  Intercollegiate   Stu- 
dent Conference,  and  for  Vassar  College  Students. 
Speeches  on  "The  College  and  the  Community." 


Exhibits 

In  the  Library,  main  floor 

Material  illustrating  the  earUer  days  of  Vassar  Col- 
lege from  the  official  side. 

In  the  Library,  third  floor.  Print  Room 
Material  illustrating  the  earlier  days  of  Vassar  Col- 
lege from  the  student  side. 


GENERAL  PROGRAMME  311 

In  the  Students  Building 

Student  Publications.  Illustrations  of  student  life  in 

recent  times. 


Delegates 


Delegates 

From  Institutions  in  Countries  Other  than 
the  United  States 

Cambridge  University  :  Emily  James  Putnam, 
LL.D. ,  Associate  in  History  in  Barnard  College ; 
Gertrude  Mary  Hirst,  Ph.D. ,  Assistant  Professor 
of  Classical  Philology  in  Barnard  College. 

Central  University  of  Spain:  Lindell  T.  Bates, 
Ph.B. ,  LL.M. ,  J.D. ,  Docteur  en  Droit  {France), 
Doctor  en  Derecho  [Spain). 

University  of  Edinburgh:  Edna  Aston  Shearer, 
Ph.D.,  Reader  in  English,  Bryn  Mawr  College. 

Royal  Frederick  University,  Christiania,  Norway  : 
Alf  Baumann,  LL.M.,  Assistant  Judge  of  the 
Royal  Probate  and  Bankruptcy  Court  of  Chris- 
tiania. 

Toronto Unrtersity :  Alfred  Baker,  M. A.,  LL.D., 
Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Arts. 

Syrian  Protestant  College,  Beirut  :  Edwin  St.  John 
Ward,  M.D.,  Professor  of  Surgery. 

Huguenot  College,  Wellington,  Cape  Colony  :  Su- 
san B.  Leiter,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Physics. 

Constantinople  College:  Ellen  Deborah  Ellis, 
Ph.D.,  Associate  Professor  of  History  and  Polit- 
ical Science  in  Mount  Holyoke  College. 


316     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Delegates 
From  Institutions  in  the  United  States 

Harvard  University  :  George  Lyman  Kittredge, 
LL.D.,  Litt.D.,  Professor  of  English. 

Yale  University  :  Arthur  Twining  Hadley,  Ph.D., 
LL.D.,  President;  Edward  Bliss  Reed,  Ph.D., 
Assistant  Professor  of  English. 

Princeton  University  :  Howard  McClenahan ,  M .  S . , 
LL.D.,  Dean  of  the  College;  Robert  McNutt 
McElroy,  Ph.D. ,  Professor  of  American  History. 

Columbia  UNivERsrrY:  Edward  Delavan  Perry, 
Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Greek ;  Virginia  C. 
Gildersleeve,  Ph.D.,  Dean  of  Barnard  College; 
Willy stine  Goodsell,  Ph.D.,  Assistant  Professor 
of  Education  in  Teachers  College. 

University  of  Pennsylvania:  Edgar  Marburg, 
C.E.,  Sc.D.,  Professor  of  Civil  Engineering. 

Brown  Unrtersffy  :  William  Herbert  Perry  Faunce, 
A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President;  Lida  Shaw 
King,  A.M.,  Litt.D.,  LL.D.,  Dean  of  the 
Women's  College. 

Rutgers  College  :  William  Henry  Steele  Demarest, 
A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

Dartmouth  College:  Homer  Eaton  Keyes,  A.M., 
Business  Director. 


DELEGATES  317 

Phi  Beta  Kappa:  Oscar  McM.  Voorhees,  D.D., 
Secretary  of  the  United  Chapters. 

American  Philosophical  Society  :  William  W .  Keen, 
M.D.,  Ph.D.,  Sc.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

University  of  the  State  of  New  York:  John  H. 
Finley,  A.M.,  LL.D.,  President;  Charles  B. 
Alexander,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  Litt.D.,  Regent; 
Abram  L  Elkus,  D.C.L. ,  Regent ;  Albert  Vander 
Veer,  M.D.,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Regent;  James  L 
Wyer,  Jr.,  M.L.S.,  Director  of  the  New  York 
State  Library. 

St.  John's  College:  Thomas  Fell,  Ph.D.,  LL.D., 
D.C.L. ,  President. 

University  of  Vermont  :  Guy  Potter  Benton,  A.M. , 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

Williams  College  :  Theodore  Clarke  Smith,  Ph .  D . , 
Professor  of  American  History. 

BowDoiN  College  :  Frank  Edward  Woodruff,  A.M., 
Professor  of  Greek. 

Union  College:  Charles  Alexander  Richmond, 
A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President,  and  Chancellor 
of  Union  University;  Edward  Everett  Hale, 
Ph.D.,  Professor  of  English. 

MiDDLEBURY  College:  Johu  Martin  Thomas,  A.M., 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

United  States  Military  Academy  :  Colonel  Gustav 


318     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

J.  Fiebeger,  Professor  of  Civil  and  Military  En- 
gineering. 

Allegheny  College:  William  Henry  Crawford, 
A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

Auburn  Theological  Seminary  :  The  Reverend 
George  Black  Stewart,  A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
President;  Edgar  C.  Leonard,  A.B.,  Member  of 
the  Board  of  Directors. 

Colgate  University  :  Elmer  Burritt  Bryan,  LL.D., 
President. 

University  of  Pittsburgh  :  Samuel  Black  McCor- 
mick, A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Chancellor;  Samuel 
Black  Linhart,  A.M.,  D.D.,  Secretary,  and  Pro- 
fessor of  Ethics  and  Biblical  Literature. 

University  of  Virginia  :  Charles  Baskerville,  Ph .  D . , 
Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  College  of  the  City 
of  New  York ;  Alumnus. 

HoBART  College:  Lyman  Pierson  Powell,  A.B., 
President;  Anne  Dudley  Blitz,  A.M.,  Dean  of 
William  Smith  College. 

TRiNrrY  College:  Caroline  M.  Hewins,  M.A.,  Li- 
brarian of  the  Hartford  Public  Library. 

Miami  University:  Elizabeth  H.  Hamilton,  A.B., 
Dean  of  Women. 

Amherst  College:  Alexander  Meiklejohn,  Ph.D., 


DELEGATES  319 

LL.D.,  President;  George  Daniel  Olds,  A.M., 
LL.D.,  Dean,  and  Professor  of  Mathematics. 

Lafayette  College  :  John  Henry  MacCracken, 
Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  President;  Samuel  Albert  Mar- 
tin, A.M. ,  D.D. ,  Professor  of  Mental  and  Moral 
Philosophy. 

Western  Reserve  University  :  Charles  F.  Thwing, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  President ;  Helen  Mary  Smith, 
B.L.,  Dean  of  the  College  for  Women. 

Indiana  University  :  The  Reverend  James  Millard 
Philputt,  D.D.,  Alumnus. 

New  York  University  :  Henry  Mitchell  MacCrack- 
en, D.D.,  LL.D.,  Chancellor  Emeritus. 

Wesleyan  University:  William  Arnold  Shanklin, 
A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  L.H.D.,  President. 

Denison  University:  Clark  Wells  Chamberlain, 
Ph.D.,  President. 

Richmond  College:  May  Lansfield  Keller,  Ph.D., 
Dean  of  Westhampton  College. 

Haverford  College:  Albert  S.  Bolles,  Ph.D., 
LL.D. ,  Lecturer  on  Commercial  Law  and  Bank- 
ing. 

Oberlin  College:  Florence  G.  Jenney,  Ph.D.,  In- 
structor of  German  in  Vassar  College;  Alumna. 

Union  Theological  Seminary  :  The  Reverend  G.  A. 
Johnston  Ross,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Homiletics. 


320    VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

De  Pauw  University  :  George  Richmond  Grose, 
A.M.,  D.D.,  President. 

Knox  College:  George  A.  Lawrence,  LL.D., 
Vice-President;  Mrs.  George  A.  Lawrence. 

University  of  Michigan  :  Lucy  Maynard  Salmon, 
A.M.,  L.H.D.,  Professor  of  History  in  Vassar 
College;  Alumna. 

Ohio  Wesleyan  University  :  Herbert  Welch ,  A .  M . , 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

TuscuLUM  College:  CO.  Gray,  D.D.,  President. 

Beloff  College  :  Henry  Raymond  Mussey,  Ph.D., 
Associate  Professor  of  Economics  in  Columbia 
University. 

BucKNELL  University  :  John  Howard  Harris,  Ph.D., 
LL.D.,  President. 

Grinnell  College:  John  Hanson  Thomas  Main, 
A.M.,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

Otterbein  University  :  Walter  G.  Clippinger, 
B.D.,  President. 

University  of  Wisconsin  :  Edwin  Campbell  Wool- 
ley,  Ph.D.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English. 

Rochester  Theological  Seminary:  The  Reverend 
Clarence  Augustus  Barbour,  D.D.,  President. 

University  of  Rochester:  Rush  Rhees,  A.M., 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 


DELEGATES  321 

Woman's  Medical  College  of  Pennsylvania  :  Clara 
Marshall,  M.D.,  Dean. 

Milwaukee-Downer  College  :  Frances  E.  Durand, 
Trustee. 

Northwestern  University:  Abram  Winegardner 
Harris,  A.M.,  Sc.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

Tufts  College:  Hermon  Carey  Bumpus,  Ph.D., 
Sc.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

College  of  the  City  of  New  York:  Carleton  L. 
Brownson,  Ph.D. ,  Dean  of  the  Faculty,  and  Pro- 
fessor of  Greek. 

Elmira  College:  M.  Anstice  Harris,  Ph.D.,  Dean 
and  Acting  President. 

Alfred  Universffy  :  Boo  the  C.  Davis,  Ph.D.,D.D., 
President. 

Cornell  College  :  Senator  Edgar  T .  Brackett,  LL .  D . 

Washington  University:  Louise  M.  Kueffner, 
Ph.D.,  Instructor  of  German  in  Vassar  College; 
Alumna. 

Earlham  College:  Martha  Doan,  D.Sc,  Acting 
Dean  of  Women. 

Saint  Stephen's  College:  William  C.  Rodgers, 
M.A.,  D.D.,  President. 

Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  :  Charles  M . 
SpofFord,  S.B.,  Professor  of  Civil  Engineering. 


322     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

University  of  Maine:  Robert  J.  Aley,  Ph.D., 
LL.D.,  President. 

National  Academy  of  Sciences:  Thomas  Hunt 
Morgan,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Experimental  Zo- 
ology in  Columbia  University. 

Bates  College:  Clara  L.  Buswell,  A.B.,  Dean  of 

Women. 
University    of    Kansas:    Kate    Stephens,   A.M., 

Alumna. 
Cornell  University  :  Jacob  Gould  Schurman ,  A .  M . , 

D.Sc,  LL.D.,  President. 

Johns  Hopkins  University:  Edward  Bennett  Ma- 
thews, Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Mineralogy  and  Pe- 
trography. 

Lehigh  University:  Natt  M.  Emery,  M.A.,  Vice- 
President. 

West  Virginia  UNiVERsrrY:  Frank  B.  Trotter, 
A.M.,  Acting  President. 

University  of  California  :  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler, 
Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Litt.D.,  President. 

University  of  Minnesota  :  Gertrude  E.  Ballard, 
A.M.,  Instructor  of  EngHsh  in  Vassar  College; 
Alumna. 

Wells  College  :  Kerr  Duncan  Macmillan,  S.T.D., 
President. 

American  Museum  of  Natural  History  :  Mary  Cyn- 


DELEGATES  323 

thia  Dickerson,  B.S.,  Curator  of  the  Department 
of  Woods  and  Forestry,  Associate  Curator  of  the 
Department  of  Herpetology. 

Pennsylvania  College  for  Women:  John  Carey 
Acheson,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  President;  Cora  Helen 
Coolidge,  B.L.,  Dean. 

S  WARTHMORE  CoLLEGE :  Joseph  S  waiu ,  M .  S . ,  LL .  D . , 
President. 

Wilson  College  :  Mary  Caroline  Spalding,  Ph.D., 
Professor  of  English. 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  :  Edward  Robinson, 
LL.D.,  Litt.D.,  Director. 

Ohio  State  UNrvERsrrY:  George  Wells  Knight, 
Ph.D.,  Dean  of  the  College  of  ELducation. 

Smith  College:  L.  Clark  Seelye,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
President  Emeritus;  Marion  Le  Roy  Burton, 
Ph.D.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President;  Mary  A.  Jor- 
dan, A.M.,  L.H.D.,  Professor  of  English. 

Syracuse  University:  Horace  Ainsworth  Eaton, 
Ph.D.,  Professor  of  English;  Jean  Marie  Rich- 
ards, Litt.B.,  Dean  of  Women,  and  Professor 
of  English ;  Elizabeth  G.Thorne,  A.B.,  B.L.S., 
Instructor  of  Reference  and  Book  Selection. 

Wellesley  College:  Ellen  Fitz  Pendleton,  A.M., 
Litt.D.,  LL.D.,  President;  Alice  V.  Waite, 
A.M.,  Dean,  and  Professor  of  English;  Julia 


324     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Swift  Orvis,  Ph.D.,  Associate  Professor  of  His- 
tory. 

Lake  Forest  College:  John  S.  Nollen,  Ph.D., 
LL.D.,  President. 

Radcliffe College  :  Bertha M.  Boody,  A.M. ,  Dean. 

Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae:  CaroHne  L. 
Humphrey,  A.B.,  President;  Vida  Hunt  Fran- 
cis, B.Litt.,  Secretary. 

American  School  of  Classical  Studies  in  Athens  : 
JuHa  A.  Caverno,  A.M.,  Professor  of  Greek  in 
Smith  College ;  Member  of  the  Managing  Com- 
mittee. 

Bryn  Mawr  College:  M.  Carey  Thomas,  Ph.D., 
LL.D.,  President;  Marion  Reilly,  A.B.,  Dean. 

GoucHER College :  William  W.  Guth,  Ph.D.,  Pres- 
ident; Eleanor  L.  Lord,  Ph.D.,  Dean. 

Leland  Stanford  Junior  University  :  Lillien  Jane 
Martin,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Psychology. 

Mills  College:  Jane  Gay  Dodge,  A.M.,  Instruc- 
tor of  Ejiglish  in  Vassar  College ;  sometime  In- 
structor. 

Universify  of  Wyoming:  E.  D.  Hunton,  B.S.,  As- 
sistant Professor  of  Commercial  Subjects ;  Mrs. 
E.  D.  Hunton,  A.B. 

Pratt  Institute:  Isabel  Ely  Lord,  B.L.S.,  Direc- 
tor of  the  School  of  Household  Science  and  Arts. 


DELEGATES  325 

Hunter  College:  George  Samler  Davis,  LL.D., 
President;  Helen  Gray  Cone,  L.H.M.,  Professor 
of  English. 

Mount  Holyoke College :  Mary  E.  WooUey,  A.M., 
Litt.D.,  L.H.D.,  LL.D.,  President;  Florence 
Purington ,  Litt .  D . ,  Dean ;  Nellie  Neilson ,  Ph .  D . , 
Professor  of  History. 

University  of  Chicago:  Alonzo  K.  Parker,  D.D., 
Trustee  of  Vassar  College ;  sometime  Trustee  and 
Recorder. 

Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  :  William  A. 
Webb,  Litt.D.,  President. 

Western  College  for  Women  :  Elizabeth  Loraine 
Bishop,  A.M.,  Professor  of  Latin  and  Greek. 

American  Academy  in  Rome:  William  A.  Boring, 
Trustee. 

Adelphi  College:  Anna  E.  Harvey,  M.A.,  Dean. 

Oxford  College  for  Women:  Mrs.  Charles  L. 
Thompson,  A.B.,  Alumna. 

Association  for  Maintaining  the  Women's  Table 
AT  THE  Zoological  Station  at  Naples,  and  for 
Promoting  Scientific  Research  by  Women:  Lil- 
ian Welsh,  M.D.,  Professor  of  Physiology  and 
Hygiene  in  Goucher  College;  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  the  Ellen  Richards  Research 
Prize. 


326     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Lake  Erie  College  :  Vivian  Blanche  Small,  A.M., 
Litt.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

Simmons  College :  Frank  Edgar  Farley,  Ph.D. ,  Pro- 
fessor of  English;  Sarah  Louise  Arnold,  A.M., 
Dean. 

Nantucket  Maria  Mitchell  Association  :  Elizabeth 
Powell  Bond,  A.M.,  Dean  Emeritus  of  Swarth- 
more  College;  Honorary  Vice-President. 

Sweet  Briar  College  :  Eugenie  M .  Morenus,  A.M., 
Instructor  of  Mathematics  and  Latin. 

Agnes  Scott  College:  Frank  H.  Gaines,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  President. 

New  York  State  College  for  Teachers:  A.  R. 
Brubacher,  Ph.D.,  President. 

Russell  Sage  Foundation  :  Mary  E.  Richmond,  Di- 
rector of  the  Charity  Organization  Department. 

Skidmore  College  of  Arts  :  Charles  Henry  Keyes, 
Ph.D.,  President. 

Wheaton  College:  Samuel  Valentine  Cole,  A.M., 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  President. 

Connecticut  College  for  Women  :  Alice  I.  Perry 
Wood,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  English;  Annina  C. 
Rondinella,  M.D. ,  Professor  of  Hygiene  and  Col- 
lege Physician. 

Women's  College  of  Delaware:  Winifred  J.  Rob- 
inson, Ph.D.,  Dean. 


DELEGATES  327 

Delegates 
To  the  Intercollegiate  Student  Conference 

Amherst  College:    Charles  B.  Ames,   Lewis  W. 
Douglas. 

Barnard  College:  Carol  Lorenz,  Ruth  Salom. 

Colgate    Universify:     Maxwell    E.    McDowell, 
Oliver  A.  Weppner. 

College  of  the  City  of  New  York  :  Norman  Salit, 
Egbert  M.  Turner. 

Columbia  University:  Robert  W.  Watt. 

Connecticut   College  for  Women:    Ethel   Isbell, 
Jessie  Wells.- 

Cornell  University  :  John  Flanigan,  Araminta  Mac- 
Donald,  Helen  Spalding,  Herbert  A.  Wichelns. 

Dartmouth  College:  Richard  Parkhurst. 

Elmira    College:    Alexandra    Davidson,    Harriet 
Emerson . 

Goucher  College:  Mary  Denney,  Ernestine  Klein. 

Harvard  Universify:  Wells  Blanchard,  William 
C.  Boyden,  Jr. 

Mount  HoLYOKE  College  :  Dorothy  Kyburg,  Marion 
Truesdell. 

Lafayette  College:   David  B.   Adler,    Guy   H. 
Stoutenburgh. 


3^8     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Mills  College:  Hope  Lobner. 

University  of  Michigan:  Helen  Humphreys. 

New    York    University:    William    K.    Doggett, 
Hilda  L.  Lankering. 

Oberlin  College:   J.   Brackett  Lewis,   Grace  E. 
Mong. 

Princeton  University:  B.  B.  Atterbury,   S.   M. 
Shoemaker,  Jr. 

Radcliffe  College  :  Rosamond  Eliot,  Katherine  A. 
Hodge. 

Smifh  College  :  Dorothy  Eaton,  Elizabeth  Hugus. 

SwARTHMORE  College  :  Eleanor  M.  Neeley,  John  E. 
Orchard. 

Sweet  Briar  College:  Margaret  Banister,  Genie 

Steele. 
Wellesley  College:  Edith  Jones,  Dorothy  Rhodes. 
Wells  College  :  Neva  Walker,  Margaret  Writer. 

Williams  College:  James  A.  Garfield,  Meredith 
Wood. 

University  of  Wisconsin  :  Helen  Salsbury. 

Women's  College  in  Brown  University:  Helen  D. 
Hart  well,  Edith  M.  Sprague. 

Yale  University  :  H.  J.  Crocker,  Jr. ,  Donald  Ogden 
Stewart. 


Committees 


Committees 
Trustee  Committee 

George  E.  Dimock,  Chairman;  Henry  M.  Sanders,  Charles 
M.  Pratt,  Henry  V.  Pelton,  Myra  Reynolds,  Mrs.  William 
R.  Thompson,  John  E.  Adriance,  Florence  M.  Gushing. 

Faculty  Committees 

General  Committee 

Amy  L.  Reed,  Chairman;  President  MacCracken,  ex  officio; 
Lucy  M.  Salmon,  J.  Leverett  Moore,  Charles  W.  Moul- 
ton,  Ella  McCaleb,  William  B.  Hill,  Margaret  F.  Wash- 
bum,  Frederick  A.  Saunders,  Jean  C.  Palmer. 

Special  Aides  to  the  Chairman 

Herbert  E.  Mills,  Christabel  F.  Fiske,  Elizabeth  B.  Cowley, 

Sophia  F.  Richardson,  Lily  R.  Taylor,  Violet  Barbour. 

Committee  on  the  Semi-Centennial  Series 
Margaret  F.  Washburn,  Chairman^  and  Editor  of  the  Se- 
ries; Aaron  L.  Treadwell,  Rose  J.  Peebles. 

Committee  on  Religious  Services 
President  MacCracken,  William  B.  Hill. 

Committee  on  Speakers 

Amy  L.  Reed,  Chairman;  Herbert  E.  Mills,  Gertrude  Buck, 
Grace  H.  Macurdy,  Marian  P.  Whitney,  Eloise  Ellery, 
Oliver  S.  Tonks. 


332     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Committee  on  Music 

J.  Leverett    Moore,    Chairman;    Charles    W.    Moulton, 

George  C.  Gow,  Emilie  L.  Wells,  Kate  S.  Chittenden. 

Committee  on  the  Alumnae  Celebration 
Caroline  E.  Fumess,  Chah-man;  Ella  McCaleb,  Ella  M. 
Freeman,  Helen  W.  Landon,  Mary  L.  Landon,  Lois  Tread- 
well,  Josephine  M.  Gleason,  Helen  Stamford. 

Committee  on  the  Student  Celebration 
Laura  J.  Wylie,  Chairman;  Emilie  L.  Wells,  Louise  D. 
Cummings,  Fanny  Borden,  C.  Mildred  Thompson,  Katha- 
rine Taylor,  Helen  E.  Sandison. 

Committee  on  the  Historical  Exhibition  of  Physical 

Training 

Harriet  L  Ballintine,  Chairman;  Marianne  L.  King. 

Committee  on  Exhibits 
Adelaide  Underhill. 

Committee  on  Receptions 

Lucy  M.  Salmon,  Chairman;  Catherine  Saunders. 

Committee  on  the  Anniversary  Dinner 
Jean  C.  Palmer,  Chairman;  Mrs.  J.  Leverett  Moore,  Dr. 
Elizabeth   B.   Thelberg,   James  F.   Baldwin,    Marian   P. 
Whitney,  Christabel  F.  Fiske,  Mary  L.  Landon,  Helen 
Stamford,  Louise  P.  Sheppard. 


COMMITTEES  333 

Marshals  for  the  Academic  Procession 
J.  Leverett  Moore,  Grand  Marshal;  Aaron  L.  Treadwell, 
Margaret  F.  Washburn,  Eloise  Ellery,  Elizabeth  H.  Haight, 
Ida  C.  Thallon,  Irmarita  Kellers,  '16. 

Committee  on  Invitations 

Ella  McCaleb,  Chairman;  Zita  L.  Thombury,  Mrs.  Ralph 

C.  H.  Catterall. 

Committee  on  Printing 

Lucy  M.  Salmon,  Chairman;  Woodbridge  Riley,  Jane  Gay 

Dodge. 

Committee  on  the  Anniversary  Seal 

William  B.  Hill,  Chairman;  Woodbridge  Riley,  Oliver  S. 

Tonks. 

Committee  on  Auditoria 
Charles  W.  Moulton. 

Committee  on  Reception  Rooms,  Dressing  Rooms, 
and  Decorations 

Lilian  L.  Stroebe,  Chairman;  Ernestine  W.  Fuller,  Ethel 
H.  Brewster,  Mary  C.  Catlin,  Helen  Morrison,  Frances  W. 
Cutler,  Kathryn  E.  Briwa. 

Committee  on  Accounts 
Charles  W.  Moulton. 

Committee  on  Press  Work 
Burges  Johnson. 


336     VASSAR  COLLEGE  CELEBRATION 

Katharine  Z.  Wells,  '15,  Gertrude  H.  Folks,  '16,  Eleanor 
I.  Leslie,  '16,  Eleanor  B.  Taylor,  '16,  Josephine  Sailer,  '17, 
Mary  C.  Stuckslager,  '17,  Jeannette  Baker,  '18,  Constance 
M.  Rourke,  Faculty  adviser. 

Committees  on  the  Pageant 

On  Costumes:  Helen  Locke,  '16,  Chairman;  Ruth  Stanley- 
Brown,  '15,  Anna  K.  Stimson,  '15,  Katharine  Barcus,  '16, 
Janet  P.  Mabon,  '16,  Dorothy  Malevinsky,  '17,  Carolyn 
C.  Wilson,  '17,  Dorothy  Cumpson,  '18,  Ellen  D.  Gailor, 
'18,  Rosalind  L.  Thomas,  '18,  Helen  E.  Sandison,  Faculty 
adviser. 

On  Properties:  Edith  A.  Raymer,'16,  Chairman;  Margaret 
L.  Lovell,  '15,  Nancy  C.  Moore,  '15,  Helen  Tawney,  '16, 
Lillie  V.  Hathaway,  '17,  Laura  T.  Cannon,  '18,  Jean  M. 
Webster,  '18,  Louise  D.  Cummings,  Faculty  adviser. 
On  Dancing:  Dorothy  E.  Holt, '15,  Chairman  in  the  spring 
of  1915;  Agnes  Rogers, '16,  Chairman  in  the  fall  of  1915; 
Frances  N.  Garver,  '17,  C.  Mildred  Thompson,  Faculty 
adviser. 

On  Music:  M.  Elizabeth  Johnson,  '15,  Chairman  in  the 
spring  of  1915;  Miriam  M.  Marsh,  '16,  Chairman  in  the 
fall  of  1915;  Ruth  P.  Cornwall,  '16,  Julia  C.  Bryant,  '17, 
Dorothy  Candee,  '18,  Emilie  L.  Wells,  Faculty  adviser. 
On  Programmes:  Lucy  D.  Smith,  '17,  Chairman;  Marga- 
ret K.  Leech,  '15,  Frances  Fite,  '16,  Margaret  Farley,  '17, 
Mary  P.  Gans,  '18,  Fanny  Borden,  i^zcw/^i/  adviser. 


COMMITTEES  337 

Joint  Committees 

Committee  on  Hospitality 

Jean  C.  Palmer,  Chairman;  Mrs.  John  E.  Adriance,  Mrs. 
J.  Leverett  Moore,  the  Wardens,  the  Members  of  the  Fac- 
ulty Resident  in  the  Guest  Halls,  and  the  Wives  of  the 
Professors. 

Committee  on  Entertainment  of  Guests 
Georgianna  Conrow,  Chairman;  Elizabeth  H.  Palmer,  Dr. 
Jane  N.  Baldwin,  Herbert  R.  Gumey,  W!  Buell  Meldrum, 
Elinor  Blackman,  '14,  Bessie  F.  Leonori,  '16,  Phyllis  E. 
Ridgely,  '16,  Ethel  L.  Rose,  '16,  and  the  Student  Presidents 
of  the  Guest  Halls. 

Committee  on  Ushering 

Mary  Yost,  Chairman;  Helen  W.  Evarts,  '17,  Grace  K. 

Tyler,  '17,  Madeleine  Hunt,  '17. 


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